Monday, February 28, 2011

Join the Seal Motorcade Mar. 26, Sat., Vancouver - the Voice of the West!by Anthony Marr on Monday, February 28, 2011 at 9:19am

MOTORCADE FOR THE SEALS

by Ericka Ceballos on Sunday, February 27, 2011 at 6:40pm

Motorcade for The SealsMarch 26, Saturday, 10:00AM, assemble at the water-front parking lot on Beach and Bute in English Bay, downtown Vancouver (2 blocks west of the Burrard Bridge)

This year for the Annual Anti-Sealing Day, CATCA is delighted to joined force with HOPE-CARE and it's Founder/President, our colleague Anthony Marr, whom we all admire and respect very much in BC for his well known animal advocacy work around the world, and who was honored with the "Best All-Around Activist Award" by Negotiation Is Over (NIH) in January 2010, and the "Henry Spira Grassroots Activist Award" by Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) at the 2010 Animal Rights National Conference in Washington DC.

He is the only Canadian activist so honored since the birth of the AR movement.

On March 12th (Saturday), we will gather at 10:00AM in the scenic water-front parking lot on Beach and Bute in English Bay, downtown Vancouver, for a unique media event called the Motorcade for The Seals.

"Tell someone that 360,000 baby seals are being killed this year, his left brain will shelf it under 'big number', and his right brain doesn't quite get to see it at all, and his emotion does not get involved," says Anthony. "But if you could find some way to show his right brain the scale of the carnage, he would likely take action. At about one meter per baby seal, a single file of 360,000 dead baby seals laid out along a highway will stretch 360km/223mi. You will have drive at highway speeds for 3 hours to go from one end of it to the other. People often stop in their tracks and look stunned."

So, how do we show this vision to the public? Via media, of course. "We all know that a demo without media coverage 'did not happen'," says Anthony Marr. "What media want is not as much information but drama. It is more how a message is delivered than the message itself. Media wants something new, either in the message, or in the delivery, preferably both. But something new is new only once. So we have to invent a new way every time."

The idea of the motorcade was conceived by Anthony Marr for his Compassion for Animals Road Expeditions (CARE-tours, of which there has been 7 since 2003, each covering 25-44 states in 3-7 months), and has been proven extremely effective as a media tool. A memorable one, involving about a dozen cars, was from Houston to Dallas, Texas, driving distance 385km/239mi, about the length of a single file of 360,000 dead baby seals, at 1 meter each, laid out along the highway. All 4 Houston TV stations showed up, plus newspapers of both Houston and Dallas. Overnight, Texans by the hundreds of thousands who knew nothing about the Canadian seal massacre learned something shocking about it, and took actions to oppose it.

[Houston to Dallas motorcade - 380km/240mi - 4 TV stations]

Although he has done many motorcades before in the US, he has never done one in his own hometown Vancouver. So now, it is Vancouver's turn.

[San Diego to Los Angeles motorcade]

The people in Victoria and Nanaimo have observed that Vancouver events are not as well attended on a per capita basis as the Victoria and Nanaimo events, and it is by and large true. This is the one and only Motorcade for The Seals to be done in Vancouver, so let's make it a big success!

We will ask media to show up around 10:30 AM. It is then we will be decorating the cars and motorcycles with posters and ribbons. The TV cameras will be going around zooming into the posters being taped on to car doors, and reporters will be randomly interviewing participants. At 11:00 AM, Anthony Marr will lead the procession on his motorcycle from downtown Vancouver via the Sea-to-Sky Highway to Squamish and Whistler, where local media will be covering the arrivals.

The driving distance from Vancouver to Squamish is 64 km/40mi, and the whole distance to Whistler is 120 km/75mi (respectively about 1/5 to 1/3 the whole length of the 360km seal line).

We hope that you will able to go all the way to Whistler for a good arrival show. Even if not, please join in the departure from Vancouver for a good TV departure presentation. After that, you can go as far as you want - Horseshoe Bay, Lions Bay, Britania Beach, Squamish, Whistler. At Whistler, we will have lunch, then go our individual ways.

Those without cars please come for the media coverage anyway to make the assembly for TV as big as possible. (Recalled the Ambleside Park dog demo? If we would do it for 100 dogs, why wouldn't we do it for 360,000 baby seals?). You could then go with those with cars, or perhaps hold your own foot demo after the motorcade has departed.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO COME TO JOIN AND SUPPORT THIS MOTORCADE FOR THE SEALS, so we need drivers with cars and motorbikes. Interested?

Contact us ASAP if you can join us for this Motorcade. You can reach us here: Anthony-Marr@HOPE-CARE.org or ericka@catcahelpanimals.org

Hope you will join us in this important event towards ending the Canadian seal massacre.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

What do 360,000 dead baby seals together look like? On March 12, Sat., I will demonstrate by leading the 120km/75mi Motorcade for The Seals from Vancouver to Whistler via the Sea-to-Sky Highway. 120km is 1/3 of 360km (223mi), the length of the single file comprising the 360,000 baby seals slated to be killed this year. This motorcade is a media event, so, the more the activists and vehicles, the better. Assemble at 10:00am in the water-front parking lot on Beach and Bute, downtown Vancouver; media at 10:30; departure at 11am. Please come and join.

I was born in China and am a naturalized Chinese Canadian, i.e. by choice. I chose to be Canadian because I loved the country. As soon as I set foot in Canada in 1965 when I came over from Hong Kong on a student visa to study at a Canadian university, I felt at home. The Canadian people seemed polite, warm, kind, gentle, caring, courteous, genuine, fair, humble and simply - nice. In Hong Kong, people used to elbowed one another aside to get on a bus; in Vancouver, people let you on to the bus first. Canadian officials were, well, officious, but Hong Kong officials were downright abusive.

It was said that the system back in Hong Kong when I was a kid was "unadulterated capitalism", and it was brutal. You swim or sink, and many sank, some right before my eyes. In contrast, the Canadian system was said to be "socialist", and I did not mind it one bit. The various social programs for the old, the young, the poor, the sick, and even for the guilty, appeared to me to be constructed on a foundation of compassion and good will. The Canadian foreign policy and involvement likewise - peace keeping, humanitarian aid, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA, with which I had personal experience), etc. And in war time, the miniscule Canadian navy was what protected American merchant convoys destined for Britain against marauding German U-boats, while the US hedged behind the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. And Canadian soldiers were among the first to land on one of the toughest Normandy beaches on D-Day... I felt that to be Canadian was to be civilized, conscientious, compassionate, courageous, and valiant. Living in the Canadian society was like living in one big harmonious family. I was happy for many years.

Unfortunately, nothing is perfect, and to complicate things, some of the imperfections were initially well hidden, at least from the eyes of a new Canadian. When I was studying for my naturalization exam, for example, the text book did not tell us about the Newfoundland seal massacre, or Big Game Trophy Hunting country-wide, or the massive destruction of the British Columbian old growth forest... These might or might not have deterred my decision to become Canadian, but they certainly burst a huge bubble when I became aware of them. And when I traveled outside of Canada, I could not shake the sense of shame on the score of the seal massacre alone, which by then had become internationally notorious and scoffed at. I still love being a Canadian in many ways, but it is just not the same thing as that initial euphoria and glowing pride, the sense of upstandingness, in which I basked when I swore in as a new Canadian.

I may be seen as beating down on the country which welcomed me with open arms, but this is not true either. My work against the seal massacre was done with love for Canada at heart, even when I asked other countries to boycott her. I love Canada enough to want the best for her, to want her to be the best that she can be, and the best for her and the best that she can be in this regard is for Canadian culture to reject cruelty, and shed the cowardice of grown men clubbing baby seals, and reject the deceit of the simplistic myth "more seals, less cod", which government officials treat as gospel truth, and government biologists know to be false.

Since about 1996, I've been involved in the anti-sealing movement in Canada. No, I've never been on the ice, but we west-coast British Columbians, who are more anti-sealing than Ontarioans, and much more anti-sealing than Newfoundlanders, do our part to give Canada some semblance of balance.

Every year on March 15, many cities around the world hold demonstrations against the seal massacre, and Vancouver is always one of them. We hold an annual demonstration at the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) building on Burrard and Dunsmuir in downtown Vancouver. The activists in Victoria and Nanaimo do their own, and I was often invited to partake and speak, if the schedules don't clash. These demos were usually well attended, with over 100 people in the Vancouver demos and at least 50 in the Victoria and Nanaimo events, sometimes even with police escort (traffic-wise). Seeing my beloved friends Lori, Judy, Bruce, Neil, Rick, Fireweed, Ericka, Lochlan, Annette... distributed in these cities on an annual basis was heart-warming in the extreme; it felt almost like an annual family event. But something kept nagging me in the back of my mind.

No doubt, these annual demonstrations have their benefits. If innovatively done, they would be covered by newspaper and TV, which raises public awareness. But is it enough? I looked at our annual protests from the sealers' viewpoint, and began to see these annual protests as flashes in the pan. After each flash, the seal hunt would proceed unscathed. To be brutally honest, were I a sealer, I would not feel much heat. I began to see that anti-sealing action should be kept hot throughout the year. Not just one day a year.

I have also done letter writing. First, to my MP (Member of Parliament), then to the DFO, then to the PM (Prime Minister). One day, I received a letter from the DFO head, which of course said that sealing could not be stopped, but at least it was individually and respectfully worded, so I thought. I showed it to Steve Thompson, a fellow anti-sealing activist. He took a glance at it and, without a word, went into his office. A moment later, he returned with a piece of paper which, upon inspection, contained exactly the same letter, word for word, except for the date, which was 2 years prior, and the signature, which was of the previous DFO head. As of that point, I decided to take the campaign outside of Canada, to apply pressure from beyond. And while I set my sight on the U.S., Vancouver activist Ericka Ceballos, founder of CATCA, set her sight on Europe.

In 2003, I launched my first Compassion for animals Road expedition - CARE-1 - which covered 42 states in 7.5 months (more on the CARE tours in a later Gratitude episode). In 2005, I dedicated CARE-3 to the Harp seals and against the Canadian seal massacre. I had my car painted with a slogan: "I AM CANADIAN. BOYCOTT MY COUNTRY!", and had it lead "funeral motorcades" wherever I went.

One of the most successful was the Houston-to-Dallas Funeral Motorcade for the Seals. The driving distance was 240 miles or 375 kilometers. This is the ideal distance for a seal motorcade. Canadian sealers annually massacre 375,000 baby Harp seals. Our question is: What do 375,000 dead baby seals look like? Sure, 375,000 is a big number for the largest marine mammal massacre in history, but the number usually gets shelved into the left brain somewhere, without having made an emotional impact. We want the right brain to say "OMG!" And our way does exactly that.

Line up 375,000 dead baby seals in single file along a highway and, at 1 meter (3.3 feet) per seal, they will make a single file of 375 kilometers or 240 miles. You have to drive at 70 mph for 3.5 hours to go from one end of the seal line to the other. If you try to get the full impact of the motorcade and concentrate on the vision of the dead-seal-line along the highway, you may get physically sick within the first half an hour. The media said "OMG!" All 4 Houston TV stations showed up, plus newspaper coverage in Dallas. While the day before almost no one in Texas knew about the Canadian seal massacre, hundreds of thousands of Texans got to know about it the day after, and some took action against it.

And Texas was not the only one. We did motorcades from San Diego to Los Angeles, from Milwaukee to Chicago, in Detroit and other cities. In general, the truer to the real distance, the more and better the media coverage. Thus, in 2005, because of the motorcades, millions of Americans previously unaware of the Canadian seal massacre were made aware of it, and many took action to boycott Canada because of it.

While CARE-3 was in progress, there was already a Boycott Canadian Seafood drive in progress in the US. What CARE-3 did was to intensified the boycott, and to broaden it to target all Canadian goods and services, including Canadian oil. Across the Atlantic, Ericka worked with European activists to have the EU countries ban Canadian seal products, which has been American policy for years. This dual approach has caused a loss in Canadian revenue from the US and the EU, and, with the loss of the European market for Canadian seal fur, the price of seal fur itself has plummeted, enough to make sealing unprofitable to many sealers. The remaining markets are in Russia, China and Japan, so, we still have a way to go.

[“Mr. Speaker, I would like to see the 6 million seals, or whatever number is out there, killed and sold, or destroyed and burned. I do not care what happens to them... the more they kill the better I will love it." - John Efford, Minister of Natural Resources, 2003. 30 animals died for his vanity in this one coat, but over 300,000 die for his evil year after year.]

On the intellectual front, I wrote a piece titled “Scapegoated Seals Save Cod”, which has been widely circulated and read. And here it is:

Scapegoated Seals Save Cod

2005-02
by Anthony Marr

While driving from Toronto to Ottawa – a four hour trip at 100 km/h - I picked up a hitch-hiker on the Toronto end, who, much to my regret, happened to be a sealer. For want of a more civil remark, I told him that he should have walked all the way to Ottawa, as an atonement.

"What for?"

"The two cities are 248 miles or 390 km apart. If you line up all the seals you guys kill every year in a single file, the line of some 350,000 seals, at a bit more than one meter per seal, would stretch from the CN Tower in Toronto all the way to the Parliament Building in Ottawa. I think, out of respect for these sentient beings, the least you can do is to walk a Funeral March for the Hunted, from the first one you kill to the last."

"A funeral march for seals? That’s ludicrous. They don’t even have souls, for Christ’s sake."

"Speaking of souls, I might suggest that you take the Funeral March as a penance. It would be good for your karma, too. Some cultures would believe that you will reincarnate as a seal next life, one destined to be skinned alive, if you don’t do something about it now."

"Yeah, right, I’m quaking in my boots already," he sneered.

"Personally, though I do find reincarnation a fascinating concept, I don’t believe this interpretation of it either. I just can’t look at an innocent baby seal and think that it used to be an evil human baby-seal killer, reborn to be skinned alive by other baby-seal killers, to atone for that ex-baby-seal-killer’s crimes. It would be adding-insult-to-injury of the worst kind. But I do think that walking the 390 km on the Funeral March for the Hunted would be good for your soul, if you have one."

"Sorry to say this to you, pal, but your 390 km is way off base. Most of the seals we kill are just babies as young as two weeks old. They don’t measure up to a meter in length. Your line of seals would be well short of 390 km; 300 km max. So there."

"I rest my case," I said, without bothering to argue that adult harp seals average 1.8 meters long, which would counter-balance the baby seals’ shortfall, or point out that the sealers and even the Canadian Fisheries Minister have been dismissing the word "baby". Instead, I asked, "How can you justify this kind of carnage? Don’t you have feelings?"

"Sure I have feelings. But it’s no skin off my back." The sneer broadened into a lopsided grin. No seal could ever produce an evil expression as this, that’s for damn sure.

"Do they have feelings?"

"Who? The seals? Why don't you ask them?"

"I don't have to. Their writhing when you skin them alive says they do. But you don't think that they feel pain?"

"I don't know. And, frankly, I don't care."

"Can't you feel their pain?"

"Not a bit. I hear them scream. I see them writhe, yeah. But I feel just fine. In fact, the more seals I kill, the better I feel."

"Don't you also feel just a bit cowardly to torture and kill a pup whose mother cannot defend, who can't defend himself, and who cannot fight back?"

"Better a living coward than a dead hero, is what I say."

"Have you no pride?"

"How much is pride a kilo, eh? How much per kilo do you sell courage for? Come to think of it, pride and courage are very expensive- to buy. So, you can keep'm. As for me, I have seal skins, seal oil and seal penises to sell, at a hundred bucks a pop, or should I say, a pup, haha."

Even-tempered as I think I am, I was beginning to see red. I took a moment to collect myself. "I believe that deep down you do feel some pain, however much you succeed in concealing it from yourself. Really, tell me. Why do you do it? You don't make all that much of money out of it. You’re primarily a cod fisherman."

His eyes lit up above the grin. "Aha! I kill seals because they eat fish, cod in particular. The more seals, the fewer cod, the fewer seals, the more cod. Plain and simple. There are some 5 million seals out there. They eat up a hell of a lot of cod. So, I don’t get enough.

"I think you got too much. It is called over fishing. And you’re scapegoating the seals for your own blunder driven by greed," I could have sounded a little less hostile, but I’m not a seal; I’m human.

"We follow the law. If the law says it is okay, it is okay. The law says it is okay."

"Only 3% of a seal’s diet comprises cod," I pointed out.

"3% of the total amount of fish eaten by 5 million seals is still a lot of cod."

I pressed on, "In other words, 97% of the seal’s diet consists of other fish species that prey on cod. Without the seals controlling the population of the predatory fish species, the amount of cod eaten would be many times greater."

"I’ve heard that before. It’s just a theory, and a vague one at that. There is no proof."

"I don’t know about you, but we on the west coast have proof," I asserted.

"I thought you were going to give me some kind of proof," he said evasively, but in doing so, jumped from the pan into the fire.

"Do you know that there used to be a commercial seal hunt on the west coast too, combined with a bounty hunt?" I asked him.

"Can’t say that I do."

"Well, it happened in the late 30’s through into the 60s. By the late 60s, the seal population had become so decimated that the hunt was banned in 1969. The ban stays in force today. The seal population has recovered."

"Bad news."

"Good news. According to your formula of more seals, fewer salmon, fewer seals, more salmon, the salmon population in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s should be high and that in the 70s, 80s and 90s should be low. Correct?"

"Damn right."

"Well, just the opposite is true."

"More seals, more salmon; fewer seals, fewer salmon?"

"Correct."

"I don’t believe it."

"Believe it."

"What do you have to back this up? "

"Could you open the Road Atlas to British Columbia?"

He did, reluctantly. "This better be good."

"Pick a river. Any river."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"Alright. The Kitimat River."

"Do you know about escapement?"

"Sure. It is the number of adult salmon that make it all the way up to their spawning ground to spawn in a salmon run. What about it?"

"Escapement of Sockeye salmon in the 50s, 27,200; the 60s, 40,500; the 70s, 73,900; the 80s, 241,000; and the 90s, 260,900."

"Enough of this crap! Even if these are true, they are west coast harbour seal and salmon, not the east coast harp seal and cod."

"And the natural law is different in the west than in the east?"

"If your figures are correct, it damn well is."

"So, are you going to do a funeral march for the seals you slaughter or not?"

"Why should I? They eat my cod."

*Note: The above numbers were exacted from BC government and academic documents

Latest is that last winter, the Gulf of St. Lawrence became ice-free for the first time. 70,000 baby seals were drowned at birth, and many more were born on the shore, making them easy prey for polar bears and Arctic foxes. So, you might expect that in the very least the Canadian government would reduce the sealing quota accordingly, but, surprise again, it RAISED the quota by equal measure. Where is the logic of that?

If Canada lacks the dignity to be honest about what its own marine biologists know to be the truth, and to end the seal massacre on its own accord based on responsibility and compassion, it will be forced to end it either by a global boycott, where the greatest loss would be the Canadian reputation, or worse, by global warming, which will melt all the sea ice, wiping out the Harp seal species. A worthy Canadian government will devote its energy to fight global warming, including banning tar sands mining, towards saving the seals and the polar bears for our children, and more importantly, for themselves.

We've all asked at some point, "Wouldn't it be powerful for many groups of like mind to collectively wage a single coordinated campaign, from coast to coast, against a single adversary?" Thus was born the concept of the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition.

In the seven months between August 29, 2003, and April 2, 2004, wildlife preservationist and anti-hunting campaigner Anthony Marr, with best-selling local vegan author Brenda Davis and her son Cory Davis, will be conducting the Compassion for Animals Road Expedition (CARE) through 40 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces (see www.HOPE-CARE.org for the state-by-state itinerary). One of CARE.s main objectives is to form the American chapter of the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition. Anthony Marr will be holding meetings with the directors and giving presentations to the members of interested animal advocacy groups en route to discuss participation, campaigns, strategy and tactics.

The first campaign of the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition will be to apply external pressure on Canada focusing on its:

1. East Coast Commercial Harp Seal Hunt (current quota . 325,000/year . the largest marine mammal hunt in the world, known as .Canada.s Shame. . the HSUS has already taken boycott action against Canada on this issue, but the more groups, the better).

3. West Coast Commercial Harbour Seal Hunt (currently being tabled in parliament), quota: an incredible 50,000/year out of a total estimated population of only 110,000 . this must be nipped in the bud).

4. West Coast Grey Whale Hunt (currently being planned . this must be nipped in the bud).

7. Trophy hunting and fur trapping (a passive-aggressive form of hunting . currently about 1,000,000/year) in general.

Groups need not have anti-hunting mandates in order to join. A vegan group, for example, is presumably intrinsically anti-animal-abuse, and therefore implicitly against hunting and trapping.

To join the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition, or if you have any questions, or if you wish to meet with Anthony Marr or arrange a presentation for him during the CARE tour, please contact him at:

Anthony-Marr@HOPE-CARE.org

Anthony Marr has also authored
Omni-science and the Human Destiny.
Visit: www.HOPE-CARE.org

Compassion for Animals Road Expedition with Anthony Marr

2004-01-21

Sunday January 25, 2-4pm, "Compassion for Animals Road Expedition with Anthony Marr" Marr will discuss his anti-hunting / trapping / factory farming coalition, which he is currently promoting on a tour through 40 states with his 7-month Compassion for Animals Road Expedition. For those who are interested in staying later, he should have time to present his "Tigers Forever" slide show which won him the honor of being called "Champion of the Bengal Tiger" in the TV documentary series "Champions of the Wild" which aired in 20 countries on Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Knowledge Network. He will also discuss his new book "Omni-Science and the Human Destiny".

Location: The meeting will be held in a small theater at 600 Garson Drive NE in Atlanta, a residential complex. (Note: this location is recorded as 3400 Garson Drive NE on mapquest and yahoomaps.)

What's planned? Led by YAAA (Youth Against Animal Abuse) and wildlife campaigner Anthony Marr, marchers for the seals will meet at the office of MP Werner Schmidt and proceed to walk to downtown Kelowna and back again, for a total of 7 km. YAAA members will be collecting signatures on anti-seal hunt postcards, which they will present to the federal government. They have requested a meeting with MP Werner Schmidt and MP Stockwell Day. A motorcade is also planned from Kelowna to Penticton, following the march.

Funeral March for the Hunted

Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting

Funeral March for the Hunted

Washington DC to New York City 375 km / 235 mi

Start date: March 15, 2005

Experience tells Canadian wildlife preservationist and anti-hunting activist Anthony Marr http://www.hope-care.org/ that when he informs people that the annual quota of the Canadian Commercial Seal Hunt is 375,000 out of a total population of 5 million, they react lukewarmly, some mumbling something about 7 percent, but when he shows them what 375,000 seals look like, they react volcanically, some exclaiming “Oh my God!”, others “Bastards!” or worse, depending on their religious orientation.

So, what do 375,000 dead seals really look like? If lined up nose to tail, at one meter per seal, 375,000 seals would form a single file stretching 375 kilometers or 235 miles – the exact distance between Washington DC and New York City.

In the Animal Rights 2004 conference, Anthony Marr spoke on “Engage Media”. “It is well known that in real estate, the three key words for success are ‘location, location, location’. In activism, the three key words are ‘media, media, media’. Basically, what the public did not see on TV did not happen,” he said. “So, to engage media. What you need are seven essential ingredients, the more used per event, the better, all if possible:

1. The event must be original (not copycat);

2. it must be creative (as outlandish as possible as long as it works - without damaging the movement as a whole);

3. it must be new to media (bearing in mind that something new is new only once at one place);

4. it must be photogenic (TV-friendly; an newspaper article without a photo is weak);

5. it must be difficult and/or dangerous to execute (what few would dare to attempt);

6. it must offer a new viewpoint on an old and hackneyed issue (rejuvenated perception); and

7. it must be transformative (from dry statistics to heart-rending visions).”

Abiding by his own advice, Marr executed an event in March 2001, called the Funeral March for the Hunted, where he walked 100 km (about 60 mi) along Hwy 7 from Mission City to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, carrying a Canadian flag with the maple leaf colored black, and a sign saying “Civilize Canada” on one side and “End the barbaric Seal Hunt” on the other. When asked by media for a sound bite, he said, “100 km is the length of a single file of 100,000 dead seals at one meter per seal; you would have to drive a full hour at highway speed to go from one end to the other.

If you think this is outrageous, consider further that 100,000 is less than one third of the total number. Canada kills 350,000 seals per year. The line would stretch 350 km, all the way from Vancouver to Kamloops. You would have to drive 4 hours at highway speeds to go from one end of the line to the other. Frankly, I don’t have time to walk that far, but you get the picture.” And the people in British Columbia too got the picture, loud and clear, since all major BC media, and many minor media along the march route, covered the event, some more than once. Upon further questioning, Marr talked about the cruelty inherent in the industry and the scapegoating of seals for the declined of the North Atlantic Cod precipitated in fact by overfishing – a human travesty.

Now, in 2005, in view of the U.S. Senate urging Canada to stop the hunt, and the HSUS unleashing its Boycott Canada campaign, Marr feels that a large-scale Funeral March for the Hunted could just be the final push needed to send the seal hunt to the abyss.

According to the above, Marr has determined to execute Funeral March for the Hunted 2005 from the Capitol building in Washington DC to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, via Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, Princeton and Newark, to generate maximum national and international coverage of the issue. The departure date has been set for March 15, to coincide with the HSUS’s continental day of protest. The duration depends on the amount of speaking engagements enroute. He will be carrying a Canadian flag with a ban-sign superimposed on the maple leaf.

Anthony Marr will be inviting activists to join him on the March, in whole or part, each carrying a sign or banner of his/her own making.

He will also explore the possibility of organizing many simultaneous marches across the land. This organizing effort would not be too difficult, given the existence of the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition which Marr formed on his 38-states-in-7.5-months Compassion for Animals Road Expedition CARE tour – see http://www.hope-care.org/ .

More than awareness-raising and action-generating (e.g. boycotting Canadian fisheries products and tourism), this is also a fund-raising event, to further advance Anthony Marr’s effort to protect the seals in particular and wildlife in general (e.g. seals, Bengal tigers, grizzly bears, whales, dolphins, etc. - see http://www.hope-care.org/ ). We ask that you make a generous pledge or donation for this march.

Further, please forward this email in its entirety to your friends and email-list contacts.

“I’ll be 61 when the March starts. I want to put my legs to some positive use while they still work,” said Anthony Marr.

Anthony Marr's 90-day Terminate-the-Seal-Hunt Campaign Tour West will be launched on May 13, 2005, Friday. (He is anti-superstition and a champion of the underdog, including the number 13.) His state-by-state itinerary is as follows: AB, SK, MB, MN, WI, IL, MO, AR, LA, TX, OK, NM, CO, UT, AZ, NV, CA, OR and WA.

He has almost single-handedly and without financial aid organized the tour up to this point, and has been successful in booking over 30 events for the first half of his 90-day itinerary from May 15 to August 15. But once on the road, he will need an anchor-person or two to continue developing the latter half of the tour to bring out its full potential, and some financial infusion to fill his gas tank

The major cities with events firmly set so far include Edmonton, Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco, some with more than one event - 35 events in all to date. There are about 20 events still in the works, and Anthony would like to see a total of at least 60 events for the entire tour, in addition to the AR2005 National Conference in Los Angeles, July 7-11, in which. he will be a major speaker. California, especially, is a state with huge potential, that has yet to be even a quarter realized.

His strategy differs markedly from those currently being employed. He believes that just as the Canadian government needs more than demonstrations and letter-writing, but an overwhelming economic boycott, to be brought to its knees, so do the seafood merchants need more than talks of cruelty and compassion to be brought onboard the boycott. He believes that the seafood merchants too, being by and large profit-motivated, would respond most readily to economic impetus as well, both positive and negative. In other words, consumer favoritism for those merchants that join the boycott against Canadian seafood, and a consumer boycott against those merchants who do not. The carrot-and-stick approach, as it were.

Anthony tactics is as follows:

1. He will work with the AR groups of at least ten major cities to vigorously petition seafood consumers to boycott Canadian seafood. The target is 5% of the population within 6 months. For a city of 1 million population, we will aim for 50,000 signatures. The petition period will span July 1 through December 31, 2005. This is about the same as petitioning to kick start a referendum initiative. With due diligence, it is achievable.

2. The signers will be urged to patronize only those seafood outlets that have joined the Canadian seafood boycott, and to shun those that have not.

3. While on tour, Anthony will hold meetings with the leading seafood outlets and restaurants of these cities to inform them of this fact, and
to have them each sign a declaration pledging to not stock, sell or serve Canadian seafood. After his departure, the hosting AR group(s) will
continue with this effort, untill all the significant seafood outlets have been contacted. It will be impressed upon these merchants that 50,000
potential customers (for a city of 1 million) will patronize them if they sign the declaration, or shun them if they don not. Anthony believes that
this is the most powerful motivation for them to join the boycott against Canada.

4. Carmen Crosland (age 14), President of Youth Against Animal Abuse (YAAA), will establish and display a webpage on her website
www.YAAAonline.org (pending) of all the seafood merchants that have signed the declaration. This database will likewise appear on Anthony's website www.HOPE-CARE.org.

5. Both www.HOPE-CARE.org and www.YAAAonline.org will provide E-petitions to aid this drive. Anthony will also help other groups to establish an E-petition page on their own websites.

6. Come the new year, Anthony and Carmen, together with all the AR groups participating in this project, will jointly present the consumer petitions and merchant declarations to the Canadian government, as well as to Canadian, American and world media.

7. Come the new year, Anthony will launch his Terminate-the-Seal-Hunt Campaign Tour East, with the same aim. If the petition targets are met, the ten cities (or more), each averaging, say, 1 million population, will have accumulated 500,000 signatures in total, and dozens of mechant declarations, each worth thousands of consumer signatures. If each consumer foregoes $50 of Canadian seafood a year, the economic loss to the Canadian seafood industry would be $25 million, exceeding the $15 million revenue from the seal hunt industry by $10 million.

The ten cities will serve only as a demonstration of the power of the boycott. If the Canadian government still does not succumb, we will
proceed with more cities. In a full scale assault involving, say, 100 cities of 1 million population each, there will be 5 million consumers
pledging to not purchase or consume Canadian seafood, causing an economic loss of $250 million to the Canadian economy. This will make the word "overwhelming" seem like the understatement of the century.

Anthony has tried hard with major anti-sealing groups for some financial assistance for this project. Many have shown interest, but none have been forth-coming with the first campaign dollar, so now he is appealing to grassroots support, in both volunteer and financial terms. Please contact him at Anthony-Marr@HOPE-CARE.org and/or phone 604-222-1169 or toll-free 1-866-822-1169. He is driving out on a near-empty gas tank, but he is committed to the project, and will start driving as of May 13, Friday.

The Chinese have a saying. "Let those with the effort come up with the effort, and those with the funds come out with the funds, and the project shall be successful."
So let's get together and get it done!

What's planned? Led by YAAA (Youth Against Animal Abuse) and wildlife campaigner Anthony Marr, marchers for the seals will meet at the office of MP Werner Schmidt and proceed to walk to downtown Kelowna and back again, for a total of 7 km. YAAA members will be collecting signatures on anti-seal hunt postcards, which they will present to the federal government. They have requested a meeting with MP Werner Schmidt and MP Stockwell Day. A motorcade is also planned from Kelowna to Penticton, following the march.

Fish boycott to save seals

2005-05

Fish boycott to save seals

NEW YORK CITY––Legal Seafoods, a 31-restaurant chain with anchor franchises in New York City and Boston, on May 9 joined Tavern-on-the-Green in Central Park and the 168-store Whole Foods Market chain in endorsing a boycott of Atlantic Canada seafood called by the Humane Society of the U.S. in protest against the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt.

The Legal Seafoods announcement coincided with the arrival in New York City of Canadian ambassador Frank McKenna, who was to make several prominent appearances.

While HSUS is promoting the boycott through a media strategy, Anthony Marr of Vancouver, British Columbia, on May 13 set out on a 90-day “Terminate the Seal Hunt Campaign Tour” of the western U.S. and Canada. Pushing the boycott through personal persuasion and petitioning, Marr said he had 35 speaking engagements already booked, with about 20 more still being finalized.

“Carmen Crosland, age 14, president of Youth Against Animal Abuse, will display a web page at of all the seafood merchants” who join the boycott, Marr said. Marr will also post the list at his own campaign web site, , and welcomes pledges and inquiries about his itinerary at either

[Vancouver]

Ban the Commercial Seal Hunt

2005-05

Voice for Animals Society and
Vegetarians of Alberta Society

Ban the Commercial Seal Hunt Presentation

Guest speaker:

Anthony Marr, world renowned Canadian environmentalist and wildlife advocate

Voice for Animals Society and Vegetarians of Alberta Society will be co-hosting Anthony Marr's "Terminate the Seal Hunt Campaign Tour".

The purpose of the tour is to increase awareness of the cruelty behind the Canadian seal hunt and the Japanese dolphin slaughter. Its aim is also to raise support for and participation in a global Canadian seafood boycott.

"Know Thy Enemy" - a fast paced, visually stunning PowerPoint presentation - will show the Japanese dolphin slaughter at Futo and Taiji and ending with the brutal Canadian seal hunt. Its powerful images are a call to action - to help end the shameful annual Canadian seal hunt.

Wednesday, June 1st, 2005 - Today's guests:
Anthony Marr Founder of Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE) - Animal activist on the slaughter of baby seals and his campaign to get America to boycott Canadian seafood in protest of the massacre.

[Ashley Fruno]

Animal Activists Lead Funeral Procession for Slaughtered Baby Seals

2005-06-08

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 8, 2005

Contact: Kathy Landry, Michol Rantschler

Animal Activists Lead Funeral Procession for Slaughtered Baby Seals

Motorcade from Houston to Dallas to mark this year’s dead, lined up 270 miles along I-45

A funeral procession at least a dozen cars long, adorned with massive banners, posters and graffiti will travel around Houston and to and around Dallas Thursday, stopping at the Canadian Consulates in both cities to tell Canada, “Stop the Massacre of Baby Seals!”

What: Funeral Procession for Baby Seals

When: Starting at 9:40 a.m. Thursday, June 9

Where: Begins at 419 Lovett Blvd, traveling around Houston, with a stop at the Canadian Consulate at 11 a.m., and on to Dallas

Renowned Canadian wildlife preservationist Anthony Marr, who is traveling the country to help end the seal massacre, will lead the procession. Houston-based In Solidarity with Animals (ISWA) and Dallas-based Animal Connection of Texas (ACT) have teamed up with Marr to be sure Houston, Dallas and everywhere between is aware of the seal hunt, the largest and most egregious commercial slaughter of marine mammals in the world.

“Even though the vast majority of our citizens desire an end to the bloody, despicable seal massacre, our Canadian government has refused to stop it,” said Marr, . “We’re turning to the American public and merchants to step in with their power as consumers. Americans can save millions of defenseless seal pups from this cruel fate by refusing to support the powerful fishing industry that has our government in its pocket.”

So far this year, the Canadian Government has allowed 317,672 harp seals to be shot, stabbed, or clubbed to death; nearly one million have been killed in the past three years. About 99.5 percent of the seals were less than a month old. A panel of international veterinarians who studied the commercial seal hunt concluded up to 42 percent of the seals they examined were likely skinned alive while fully conscious.

The last time this many seals were killed, in the 1950s, the harp seal population was driven to near-extinction.

Sealing is an off-season activity conducted by commercial fishermen from Canada’s East Coast. They make, on average, one twentieth of their incomes from sealing – the rest from commercial fisheries.

Canadian seafood exports to the United States, in particular, are worth over 3 billion dollars annually to the Canadian economy, dwarfing the few million dollars from the seal hunt.

Marr, ISWA and ACT have joined a global campaign to end the hunt that involves groups in 27 countries, including the Humane Society of the United States, to effect a collective and sustained boycott of Canadian seafood until the hunt ends.

Whole Foods Market and several other major merchants have already joined the boycott. Marr has personally met with local merchants and restaurants on his tour; many have signed a declaration pledging not to stock, sell or serve Canadian seafood until the Canadian seal hunt is banned.

wildlife preservationist
traveling the country to help end the Canadian seal massacre
& raise awareness about Japan's dolphin & whale slaughter

"Even though the majority of our Canadian citizens desire an end to
the bloody, despicable seal massacre, our government has refused to stop it. We¹re turning to the American public and merchants to step in with their power as consumers. Americans can save millions of defenseless seal pups from this cruel fate by refusing to support the powerful fishing industry that has our government in its pocket."
--- Anthony Marr, Canadian wildlife preservationist

"As responsible consumers and compassionate world citizens, we can prevent the inhumane death of hundreds of thousands of seals and dolphins in two massive hunts currently in progress. Together we can end the suffering, and create a responsible partnership with animals."
--- Kathy Landry, Marine Mammal Campaign
Coordinator, In Solidarity With Animals

Renowned Canadian wildlife preservationist Anthony Marr, traveling the country to help raise awareness and end the seal massacre in Canada,brought his one man campaign to Texas this week. He led a funeral motorcade procession on Thursday with members of Houston-based In Solidarity with Animals (ISWA) and Dallas-based Animal Connection of Texas(ACT) who teamed up with Marr to be sure Houston, Dallas and points between are aware of the seal hunt, the largest and most egregious commercial slaughter of marine mammals in the world.

The motorcade from Houston to Dallas marked this year¹s baby seal dead count of nearly 325,000, if the pups were lined up head to toe, their bodies would span the 270 mile distance along I-45 between these two Texas cities.

A funeral procession with at least a dozen cars long, adorned with massive banners, posters and graffiti traveled around Houston and to and around Dallas Thursday, stopping at the Canadian Consulates in both cities to tell Canada, ³Stop the Massacre of Baby Seals!²

So far this year, the Canadian Government has allowed 317,672 harp seals to be shot, stabbed, or clubbed to death; nearly one million have been killed in the past three years. About 99.5 percent of the seals were less than a month old. A panel of international veterinarians who studied the commercial seal hunt concluded up to 42 percent of the seals they examined were likely skinned alive while fully conscious. The last time this many seals were killed, in the 1950s, the harp seal population was driven to near-extinction.

Marr, ISWA and ACT have joined a global campaign to end the hunt that involves groups in 27 countries, including the Humane Society of the United States and Sea Shepherd, to effect a collective and sustained boycott of Canadian seafood until the hunt ends.

Whole Foods Market and several other major merchants have already joined the boycott. Marr has personally met with local merchants and restaurants on his tour; many have signed a declaration pledging not to stock, sell or serve Canadian seafood until the Canadian seal hunt is banned.

Anthony is calling on a boycott of all goods and travel to his country.

While in Houston last week, he also gave a teach at the First Unitarian
Church and showed graphic slides and video of the dophin and whale massacre in Japan which he witnessed last fall.

He has traveled throughout the world to execute various conservation
projects on Bottlenose dolphins, Harp seals, the Grey whale, Tigers, &
Grizzly bears. He also conducts an extensive educational outreach
programs. His [Tigers Forever] slideshow has been presented to over
150,000 students on three continents.

Michol Rantschler, co director of In Solidarity with Animals (ISWA) and Kathy Landry, Marine Mammals Coordinator, In Solidarity with Animals, will co host today's show and Vivian Farrell, founder and president of the Houston-based International Fund for Horses will share with us some late breaking great news! about the campaign to end horse slaughter.

Thank you for listening with an open mind and heart this morning to Go
Vegan Texas! on Pacifica Radio/ KPFT.

Well, it did not take long. It’s getting to the point that being a conservationist automatically makes a person a racist. Now it appears it is racist to defend sharks. What is even more amazing is that some people consider it a form of “Western cultural imperialism” to criticize Disneyland in Hong Kong.

I’ve been called a racist for defending whales, seals, fish and trees, for speaking out about human over-population and for defending elephants. So I guess it is not surprising to now be called a racist for defending sharks.

Let me see, for defending whales we are anti-Japanese, anti-Norwegian, anti-Icelandic and anti-Native American. For defending seals we are anti-Canadian, anti-Norwegian and anti-Namibian. For defending trees we are anti-Hispanic and anti Native American oh yes and anti-working class. It appears that loggers who make four times the average income of an environmental activist are workers and the lower paid activists are viewed as wealthy. You see when you work without pay because you know; you feel that the entire future of the planet is at stake, this is viewed as a luxury. In other words environmental activists have the luxury of sleeping in trees and not owning a home, a car or recreational vehicles.

Anyways back to being a racist for saving sharks.

I was sent a response from a man named Hsing Lee who believes that the entire campaign to stop people from eating shark fin soup is motivated by anti-Chinese passions.

I guess that’s why we are opposing Disneyland. Lee apparently believes that it is part of the traditional Chinese culture for Chinese couples to have Disney character fantasy weddings where traditional shark fin soup is served.

Never mind that Disneyland has now become a Mousewich for sharks and that a hundred million of them are being cruelly slaughtered to provide trinkets, and expensive, tasteless status symbol bowls of soup. A hundred million sentient creatures a year massacred for non-nutritive purposes, slaughtered for vanity and justified by culture.

It’s a holocaust for sharks including those killed for the Mouseshirted eco-fascists at Disneyland Hong Kong but Lee is blind to the plight of the sharks and most likely he is as apathetic about the health of the oceans as well.

This is his protest:

You have some Western prejudice in play here on your part.

The medicinal properties of sharks fin soup are well known, and it’s been used as food and medicine for thousands of years. It’s as traditional a dish as steak and potatoes. Would you prefer that we Chinese give up our culture and identity and conform to Western diet, medicine, and language? It’s not Chinese medicine that brought the world Heroin or Vicodin or Oxycontin or Vioxxx, all of which are infinitely worse for people than a shark’s fin. And I can testify first hand to the medicinal qualities of shark’s fin soup. It really does make you stronger, more virile, and gives you a more adaptable immune system. You fight off sickness faster when you drink it. And unlike Westerners and their whale killing for ambergris, we Chinese actually put the rest of the shark on people’s dinner tables. We even use the highly elastic bone and tendon. There is no wastage unless the shark is one of a handful of breeds that can be toxic.

The tone of this entire article (referring to the article in the Herald Tribune and the New York Times) is ignorant, racist, and just more China and Chinese bashing by a bunch of fucking Nazi crackers who think only Western ways are good or proper and everyone else is immoral.

Hsing Lee makes quite a few factual errors in his protest. It was China that actually introduced opium to the West and heroin is an extract of opium. There are no Western whalers hunting whales for Ambergris which comes only from the Sperm whale and the only nation hunting Sperm whales is Japan. There is no scientific validity to the claims that shark fin is a health benefit. It is not true that the Chinese use all parts of the shark. 90% of shark fins come from sharks where the body has been discarded. Shark fin is not as traditional dish in China as steak and potatoes is for Westerners for the simple reason that the cost of between $100 and $400 per bowl makes it a restricted dish available only to the wealthy.

I sent the following reply to Hsing Lee.

To Hsing Lee,

I don’t fall for the racist guilt crap.

The fact is that sharks are being seriously diminished and a major reason for it is the Asian demand for shark fin soup. My opposition to shark-finning has nothing to do with any prejudice towards Chinese culture. On the contrary my one child is half Chinese and I have quite a few Chinese in-laws, all of whom are opposed to shark fin soup by the way.

Anthony Marr is a Vancouver Chinese activist, originally from China and a dedicated activist against shark finning....

Utah Animal Rights Coalition

2005-06-25

Utah Animal Rights Coalition

Anthony Marr of the HOPE-CARE foundation, as part of his 90-day Terminate-the-Seal-Hunt Campaign Tour West will be presenting Know Thy Enemy, followed by a presentation and discussion of the Canadian Seal Hunt. 2:00 pm at the Salt Lake City Public Library in the fourth floor meeting room

In his new book Rafe — A Memoir, pre-eminent Canadian talk show host Rafe Mair wrote, "Anthony Marr had spent his working life doing very routine, capitalistic sorts of things, including mining and real estate. At 50, some sort of light fired up in his belly, and he decided to spend the rest of his life saving animals, especially from institutionalized cruelty." His campaigns have included Chinatown undercover (throughout N. America), anti-trophy-hunting ("highest profile Canadian AR campaign in 1996"), anti-whaling, anti-sealing, Bengal tiger preservation (led three deep-rural-India expeditions), educational outreach (presentations to over 150,000 students) and lecture/campaign road touring (e.g. the 40-states-in-7-months Compassion for Animals Road Expedition — CARE). Mair further wrote, "Anthony has forced me to ask myself about my life-long love of angling… That’s the trouble with real heroes. They make you confront yourself and that isn't always a whole lot of fun."

Tonight's plenary was all about individuals turning a dream of animal liberation into reality. Lawrence Carter-Long of In Defense of Animals moderated.

The next to final speaker of the plenary was Anthony Marr (HOPE-CARE Foundation). His first campaign was in Vancouver's Chinatown and saw all kinds of endangered wild animal products. He was instrumental in getting laws enacted legislation against this within four months. In other towns where laws in place weren't being enforced, he pressured the law to bypass "sensitivity" issues (Anthony is Chinese himself) to crack down and stop shops from selling these products.

After some other overview he got into the Canadian seafood boycott, and how it pertains to the seal slaughter.

2005-07

Terminate-The-Seal-Hunt Campaign Tour West

Anti-hunting activist and wildlife preservationist Anthony Marr on his 3-month Terminate-The-Seal-Hunt Campaign Tour West now in Portland to speak Sunday, July 31st on a new strategy to end the

Canadian seal massacre
and the
Japanese dolphin slaughter

Anthony Marr (www.hope-care.org) has been on the road continuously since May 13 on his Terminate-The-Seal-Hunt Campaign Tour West. Now, he is in Portland to present a new strategy, which will deliver a devastating punch against the seal hunt (325,000 seals per year), and invite local activists to join the Grassroots Anti-Seal-Hunt Coalition, which will be a powerful force to reckon with.

“I have so far signed up animal rights groups in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. I hope to sign up a group or two in Portland. I am already planning the Terminate-The-Seal-Hunt Campaign Tour East for the fall,” says Anthony.

Anthony was a prominent speaker at the July 7-11 Animal Rights 2005 National Conference in Los Angeles, where he made six speeches, including one plenary, on Indian tiger preservation, the Japanese dolphin slaughter and the Canadian seal hunt.

Anthony was in Japan last year to investigate and save dolphins from the dolphin slaughter (23,000 dolphins a year). He came back with a stunning PowerPoint presentation titled Know Thy Enemy, which he will also feature at the Sunday event.

In view of the upcoming Red Lobster Week of Action in September
(Thank you Andrea!), And given Red Lobster's steadfast refusal to join the boycott, I would like to suggest that we change our message from

"RED LOBSTER, PLEASE JOIN OUR BOYCOTT AGAINST THE CRUEL CANADIAN SEAL HUNT!" to

The new Grassroots Anti-Seal-Hunt Coalition, currently comprising
about a dozen leading AR groups in as many leading mid-western and
western cities, will be making this change in this week of action. Some, e.g. IDA, have already made this change since the last Red Lobster demo at the end of July in Portland, Oregon. We feel that Red Lobster, which boils thousands of lobsters alive everyday, has about as much compassion as the Canadian government. So if boycotting Canada is the best strategy regarding Canada, then boycotting Red lobster is the best strategy regarding Red Lobster.

We hope that we will all give Red Lobster this unmistakable message
in September, in unison, from coast to coast.

Anthony Marr
www.HOPE-CARE.org

Red Lobster, Canadian Seafood, Clubbing Baby Seals

2005-07-30

In Defense of Animals (IDA)

Portland, OR

Red Lobster, Canadian Seafood, Clubbing Baby Seals

1) Demo at Red Lobster
We are urging Red Lobster to join a list of businesses that are boycotting Canadian Seafood until that country places a ban on its seal hunt. (www.protectseals.org)

We have a real treat at this demo because AR activist Anthony Marr will be joining us. You can learn more about Anthony at www.HOPE-CARE.org.

2) Animal Rights Activist Anthony Marr is Coming to Portland and asking IDA Members' Help in the Boycott against Canadian Seafood:

Anthony will be giving a presentation based on his trip to Japan last year and it will concentrate on Taiji and Futo regarding the dolphin slaughter and the whale meat industry. This will be followed by a talk on a new strategy on how to end the Canadian seal hunt.

Please join us to find out how we can help this incredible activist while he's here in our hometown. Let's show Anthony how determined and dedicated Portlanders really are! For more information on Anthony visit www.HOPE-CARE.org.

RED LOBSTER SUPPORTS CANADIAN CRUELTY

2005-08-19

Hi all,

I received inquiries about my current Terminate The Seal Hunt
Campaign Tour West, which started on May 13, and will conclude on
August 5. I have held meetings with the leaders of the grassroots
groups in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles and
San Francisco (where I currently am), including the Circle of
Compassion, In Defense of Animals and Last Chance for Animals, and
will hold meetings with groups in Portland and Seattle. A
preliminary Anti-Seal-Hunt Grassroots Coalition has been formed. All
these groups have agreed upon a new strategy toward defeating the
seal hunt, which is different from that currently being used by most
groups.

We all know about the anti-Canadian-seafood boycott. Why the
boycott? Because the Canadian government cannot be moved by
compassion. They can be moved only by economic leverage. Thus the
boycott.

So far, we have been using compassion to try to move Red Lobster, in
vain. Why? Red Lobster boils alive lobsters by the thousands every
day. How much compassion does it have? We must now use the same
economic leverage against Red Lobster, i.e. a boycott.

Following is an example.

Portland will be holding a demo in front to Red Lobster on July 30,
Saturday, in which I will participate. This time, instead of holding
signs saying "RED LOBSTER, PLEASE JOIN THE BOYCOTT AGAINST CANADIAN CRUELTY", which draws sneers from the management, this time, the signs will say,

"RED LOBSTER SUPPORTS CANADIAN CRUELTY. BOYCOTT RED LOBSTER!" And I will personally go inside the restaurant to speak with the manager.

If we do this cross the continent, Red Lobster will get the message
and capitulate.

First of all, congratulations for your victory over Ex-Prime-Minister Paul Martin, with whom and whose ministers we have had fruitless and even counter-productive communications until their well deserved defeat. This letter is written with the hope that your the new government will show more economic and ecological acumen, as well as compassion for the innocent, maligned, brutalized and massacred, in regards to the infamous Canadian seal hunt.

Allow me to briefly introduce myself: My name is Anthony Marr. I am a naturalized Chinese Canadian who has lived in Canada since 1965, when I was 21, and in Vancouver, British Columbia, since 1966. I became a Canadian because, after five years at two Canadian universities in two Canadian cities, of two Canadian provinces, I had grown to love Canada - its beauty, its wilderness, its biodiversity, its people, and many of its accomplishments, both at home and aboard, as well as the global leadership it has taken on so many fronts. The day I received my Canadian citizenship was one of the proudest days of my life. I still love Canada as I did that day, in certain respects even deeper, although in the mean time, I received a few very rude awakenings, which happened all to fall under the category of animal welfare, and in places deeper into animal rights.

My first rude awakening came one day in 1995, when I entered a Chinese apothecary in Vancouver’s Chinatown, and found, on open display for sale, medicinal products containing endangered species components, including tiger bone, tiger penis, rhino horn and bear gall bladder. By then, three of the original tiger subspecies had fallen extinct, and the other five tiger subspecies, along with all rhinoceros species, and six of the eight bear species, had been classified as endangered, just one notch above extinction. International law forbade the trade of all endangered species, in whole or part, dead or alive, and there they were - tiger bone, bear gall and rhino horn medicines galore, in all the 37 apothecaries that I eventually investigated under my own steam as a concerned Canadian citizen. I discovered then that although Canada abided by international law and banned the importation of these products, there was no law to ban their sale. In other words, Canada was saying to the rest of the world, “We do not allow you to import endangered species products into our country, but if you are smart enough to smuggle them in, we’ll let you sell them openly.” It was then that I decided to wage a campaign to cleanup the Chinatowns of Canada, and subsequently the Chinatowns of the United States.

The question was - How? I had basically two options. One was to go directly to the Chinese community to try to convince the merchants to voluntarily discontinue the practice, or to go to the Canadian government to lobby for a new law to ban the sale of these products, so that the merchants had no choice but to discontinue the practice. As it turned out, they were both dead-ends. This forced me to create a third option, which was to bring media into Chinatown to document my open purchase of dozens of different brands of these products, in newspapers and on TV. It almost instantly became a hot news topic throughout Canada, and even in the United States, which raised loud and vehement outcries from the general public. The media blitz was performed about a dozen times in the Chinatowns of Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto and Ottawa in late 1995, and in April 1996, a new law, known as WAPPRITTA, was put into effect by the federal government, which banned the sale of these products.

During the height of the campaign, the hitherto unresponsive Chinese community came to a boil, denouncing me as a “traitor”. During a Chinese radio talk show, a caller asked me why I was trying so hard to ruin the Chinese reputation. My answer was that I was doing it for the Chinese reputation, because, if things proceeded unimpeded, the tiger and rhino and bear species would inevitably be driven to extinction, and the Chinese reputation would be forever mud. I am happy to report that the Chinatowns have upgraded themselves on to a new endangered-species-free equilibrium, and I have since been reaccepted into the Chinese community.

This campaign taught me several things, one being that sometimes, the best place to solve a problem of one community is outside of it.

In May 2005, after receiving zero meaningful response from the Martin government, I undertook a 3-month road tour throughout the United States (my third since 2003). My car was decorated with photographic posters of burley Canadian men bashing helpless seal pups with clubs, On my car windows were heavy white lettering spelling “I AM CANADIAN. BOYCOTT MY COUNTRY!” Of course I was again called a “traitor” by some. This was with reference to the Boycott-Canadian-Seafood campaign led by the Humane Society of the United States.

I derived little pleasure from driving city to city, state to state, urging Americans to boycott my country. But after I had begun to lose count of the number of honks from passing cars and thumb-up signs from passersby, I began to drive on with true Canadian pride. I even proceeded to lead intercity Funeral Motorcades for the Seals, one, for example, from Houston to Dallas, which are about 350 km apart. 350 km is about the distance from Vancouver to Kelowna (the riding of the Hon. Stockwell Day, who seemed a compassionate soul), and almost the distance from Toronto to Montreal. 350 km because that would be the length of a single file of the 350,000 dead seals massacred in Canada last year, and the year before that. American media loved it, and the Canadian Seal Hunt became the talk of the Texans.

And I intend to make it the talk of the world. In expectation of yet another seal hunt this year, I am now organizing another “BOYCOTT CANADA” continental tour, and I am willing to do so year after year, until this barbarous hunt is history. In the mean time, I will walk and drive amongst Americans, in half pride, half shame. And the only way that this shame can be eradicated is when my country terminates this unspeakable practice once and for all.

Another thing that Ex-PM Martin fell short in was his being duped by his own Department of Fisheries and Oceans, into condoning the seal hunt based on a scientific fallacy. Basically, the DFO presented Mr. Martin with an ecological model that is false - by scapegoat the seals for the decline of the cod fishery which was damaged, in fact, by DFO’s own mismanagement, which caused over fishing, which led to the fishery collapse, plus its pushing the seal hunt, thus decimating the predator of the predators of cod. Their oversimplified model - fit for a moron, not for a prime minister - is that seals eat cod, and therefore, fewer seals = more cod. It treats the North Atlantic Ocean as if it were inhabited by only two species - seal and cod, when in fact there are at least 20 major species of fish, most predatory upon cod and predated upon by the seals. The true equation is - more seals = fewer cod-predators = more cod. A parallel situation occurred on the west coast. From 1939 through 1969, there was indeed a seal hunt - a commercial hunt and bounty hunt combined. Same moronic formula - “more seals fewer salmon, fewer seals more salmon”. The hunt was a disaster. By the 1960s, when the seal population had been decimated, the salmon runs collapsed - in river after river throughout the BC coast. In 1970, finally, the hunt was banned. By the 1990s, the seal population had recovered, and likewise the salmon runs.

The Martin government was at least in this case one of ignorance and/or deceit, in which truth was sacrificed for votes and profit. Speaking of votes, he had lots of East Coast support, but see what good it did for him. I hope that your new government will be more honest, enlightened, inspired, and courageous. I would much rather work with the government than against it, with respect than in disdain, any time.

As we speak, numerous major seafood chains in the United States have signed on to the boycott. Whereas the seal hunt brings in some $12 million a year into the Canadian economy, the economic boycott against the Canadian seafood and other industries promise to be more than ten-fold this amount in negative impact. There are already reported losses in excess of $100 million from the Canadian seafood industry. One might argue about the exact cause of the loss, but there is no arguing about the official policy of the United States, which is that importation of Canadian seal products is blanket-banned. Are we Canadian less civilized than the Americans? Further, not only is the boycott spreading sociologically, it is spreading geographically, in Europe, including Britain and Italy.

Are Canadians proud of a country known for being number one in the pillaging of nature, in conducting the largest marine mammal slaughter in the world bar none, of all time, by far? Speaking as a Canadian myself, I am not. And I intend to change it. And I do not believe that I am alone.

The banning of the seal hunt will be a major quantum leap in Canadian culture. Its downfall is inevitable. It’s just a matter of time. The name of the party with the courage to seize the moment and decisively terminate this medieval tradition will long be remembered and honored by our future generations. There will only the two alternative outcomes - the heroic, where the government acts with respect for life and dignity in action, or the cowardly, when the government is forced by the sheer economic weight of the boycott to capitulate.

Dear Prime Minister Harper, I wish you a wise administration and decisive action, and a place of dignity in future Canadian history.

Sincerely,

Anthony Marr, founder

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)

350,000 Seals Will Die...

2006-03

found on E-Bay

350,000 Seals Will Die...

Three Hundred & Fifty Thousand!!!

(The Canadian government has added about 10,000+ more to the count to make sure they get the quota they need to make their inhumane profit, not to mention the seals they kill & slip into the ocean before they can get their fur)

Can you even begin to imagine how many that is?
Anthony Marr, a Canadian Wildlife Preservationist
& Anti-Hunting activist,
had a very unique way to explain
just how many seals 375,000 really is.
If you lined these seals up nose to tail,
estimating each seal to be about 1 meter in length,
375,000 seals would form a single line
stretching 375 kilometers or 235 miles.
This is about the distance between

There is a ominous dark band sitting on the western horizon. It has been brewing there for several years. Yesterday, one of the dark clouds rolled over, and cast a shadow upon us.

During the anti-seal-hunt demo in Vancouver (in which over 80 people participated), a native person in a native straw hat approached me and handed me a pamphlet. I thought he looked vaguely familiar. Being the polite person that I am, I thanked him for coming without looking at the pamphlet first. Next minute, I realized that the pamphlet was in praise of the health benefits of seal oil. Then, it dawned on me that he was none other than Roy Jones, one of the hereditary chiefs of the Haida Nation in the Queen Charlottes Islands.

Back in about 2000, I received a call from Rafe Mair, then the leading talkshow host on CKNW, inviting me to go on his program to debate Roy Jones for a full hour on his proposed West Coast Seal Hunt. The Harbour seal population on the entire west coast number only about 110,000, and Jones proposed to "harvest" 50,000 annually, and "bring $7 million into the Canadian economy". He was blatant about making it a commercial seal hunt, but of course he used the justification of protecting salmon from seal predation. Thankfully, I had done my homework beforehand, and presented to the listening audience irrefutable evidence, extracted from government documents themselves, that the populations of seals and salmon are in direct proportion, i.e., more seals, more salmon; fewer seals, fewer salmon.

This was demonstrated beyond doubt in river after river, from the 1930s to the 1990s. Between 1939 and 1969, there was indeed a west coast seal hunt. By the 1960s, the seal population had become decimated, and so did the salmon runs in the rivers. The hunt was ended in 1970, and by the 1990s, the seal population had recovered, and so did the salmon runs. I presented hard figures river by river, until Mair halted me and said that he himself was convinced.

In our 2005 Vancouver anti-sealing demo, Jones took advantaged of our labour of love, placed himself in front of the CBC-TV camera during the demo yesterday, and, as it worked out, he got more air time on the CBC-TV coverage of the demo than we did. He was still saying the same things as he did on the Mair debate five years ago, only that he seemed more determined than even to get the hunt started.

I don't know if any study has been done on long term projections on the seals and the massacre. If anyone knows of any, please let me know. Meanwhile, here are some of my thoughts.

The Newfoundland coastline is very long, easily 1,500 km as the crow flies, comparable with that of British Columbia or (California + Oregon + Washington). Considering an average icecap retreat rate along the coast of X km/year, it will take 1,500/X years for the ice to retreat from St. John's up to Cape Chidley. So first, X has to be known.

Depending on the time frame, and assuming that the hunt is not stopped, the sealers could gradually move north to keep up with the retreating ice if the retreat is slow enough, or be left behind if the retreat is fast enough, or else the sealers could leap-frog and set up shop at Cartwright, or Hopedale, or Hebron or even Cape Chidley itself. Whether they would do this depends on if they would need to stay where they are for they non-sealing-seasons fishery.

There is also the consideration whether the ice would retreat eastwards away from land as well as due north. In this case, the sealers may have to go out way off shore to reach the ice, and there a distance limit as to how far off shore the sealing boats could go would apply.

In the longer term, the ice in the Northwest Passage will break up, and large scale commercial navigation will be developed, and the seals will be more exposed than ever. Greenland will probably play a role in whatever may develop, including sealing.

As for the seals, I think ecologically they will do better than the polar bears. The pupping ice will be shifted northward, and the seals will likely shift north with it, assuming that their food-fish will do likewise. Already, Atlantic cod is moving northward to invade the habitat of the Arctic cod.

We should form a long term strategy to safegurad the seals according to such scenarios. And certainly, we should end the hunt before any of this progresses too far.

As you may know, the Canadian Seal Massacre is top campaign in North America bar none at this time of the year, and I have been right in the mix of it. I'm writing to seek you advice and perhaps also your help in terminating this barbaric "tradition". You will find the following article very informative and quite balanced on the state of the movement. A certain emphasis is placed on the Paul McCartney visit. Of special note is the line "Outside Atlantic Canada, Canadians are divided about the seal hunt. While local animal-rights activists are against the hunt, the incursion of wealthy international stars making pronouncements about Canadian policy has turned off many Canadians." My feeling is that it is actually not good inside Canadia in actually raising support for the massacre, but good outside of Canada in bringing the atrocity to global attention. If this observation is correct, it should be taken very seriously when planning our future strategy. The more important point in this article, however, is this: "Today, a seal pelt fetches about $70, compared with $15 in the mid-1990s. The Barry Group processes 120,000 to 150,000 pelts a year. Once treated and dyed, about 90 per cent of the pelts go to brokers in Russia and China. Russia is the No. 1 customer, with China coming on with insatiable demand." I see China as being an even greater threat than Russia, because its market will likely surpass that of Russia within years. As you know, when it comes to trade in animal parts, which seal pelts are, there are always the supply-side (in this case Canada), and the demand side (China and Russia), and both need to be plugged before the campaign can be fully effective. I have two questions: 1. Given your experience working in China, how do you think best to have China ban the importation of seal products from Canada? 2. Obviously, Animals Asia is ideally positioned to tackle this problem, partly because of the organizational infrastructure you have already built, would you be willing to participate in this global campaign?

I will of course do whatever I can to work with you from over here.

Looking forward to seeing your reply, one way or the other.

For the animals,

Anthony Marr, founder

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)

[Steve Thompson]

Walk for the seals event a success!!

From Bruce Foerster
Victoria, BC, Canada

May 8, 2006

Dear fellow animal lover,

I am so very pleased to announce that the 1st annual `Walk for
the Seals' event was a BIG success! Despite the dire weather
outlook in the morning, it turned into a beautiful sunny day just in
time for the Seal Walk! ( the Gods were with us after all ; > ) We
had approx. 50 people meet in Centennial Square for the 1 mile walk
to the Legislature where we were joined by a contingent of
supporters from Vancouver and a few more locals giving us a grand
total of approx. 80 people!! It was so nice for everyone to be able
to relax on the grass and look up at the magnificent Legislature
buildings while learning more about this issue from our various
speakers!

I led the group down Government St. reciting into a bull horn
the statistical facts which characterize this senseless and
barbaric `hunt'. We were quite a sight coming through town I can
tell you that and attracted a lot of attention from locals and
tourists alike!

Anthony Marr was our first speaker and inspired us
with the many animal rights projects he has instituted in the past
as well as his background knowledge of the commercial seal hunt
which was gathered over many years of studying this perplexing
issue. Anthony played a `requiem for the seals' on his keyboard
which was a beautiful, yet sad piece of music, but gave us all time
to reflect upon the horrible fate of these innocent and defenseless
baby animals that we are so determined to save and protect.

Next to speak was Steve Thompson, a long time Sea Shepherd
supporter from Vancouver about his trials and tribulations trying to
convince Costco to stop selling seal oil capsules. Quite the story!
Bottom line is a boycott of Costco until they agree to stop
participating and profiting from this cruel industry!

Nadine Saunders gave us her thoughts of the seal hunt from the
perspective of a native Newfoundlander which was very interesting.
As Nadine explained, Newfoundlanders are very set in their ways but
her family could never accept sealing as anything more, or less than
the sadistic, senseless and bloody thing that it is!

I then took the liberty of sharing with the group my opinion of the Canadian commercial seal hunt and attempted to convey how much I despise it and why l work tirelessly to end it! Any assistance you can lend the various initiatives that I, and others take to end this crime against nature is certainly appreciated and vital if we are going to influence government policy which we must do at the very highest levels in order to stop this senseless slaughter!

Thank you to those of you who took the time out of your busy
lives to join us in opposing this cruel and barbaric hunt! I know
that many of you wished you could have been there but just could
not. I know you were there with us in spirit and your spirit burned
brightly yesterday along with the spirits of some 80 other
compassionate souls! The success of this rally means more rallies
in the future! I will keep in touch and let you know when our next
initiative will be and hope that you will be able to participate and
help us to end this atrocity against nature forever!

Sincerely,

Bruce Foerster
Save the Seals Coalition
216-9610

p.s. – Congratulations to Bill Chemko from Nanaimo who won the draw
for the vacation to Belize!! Bill is working hard to end the seal
hunt so no one is more deserving! : >

Victoria to Campbell River and back Funeral Motorcade for the Seals

2006-06-07
Media Release

for immediate release
July 2

Victoria to Campbell River
and back
Funeral Motorcade
for the Seals

340 km return = line of 340,000 dead seals (@ 1 m/seal)
the 340,000 seals massacred in Canada every year

see
www.HOPE-CARE.org
Seal page

On the day after Canada Day, not on Canada Day itself, a group of aggrieved and ashamed Canadians, and compassionate Americans, will perform the Funeral Motorcade for the Seals from Victoria to Campbell River and back. As the procession goes through Duncan, Ladysmith, Nanaimo, Parksville, Qualicum, Comox and Courtenay, they will be joined by local activists and their vehicles, culminating in the "Grand Arrival" back in Victoria in the afternoon.

“340,000 is a large number, sure, but people take a glance at it, raise their eye-brow a little, shelve the number somewhere in the left brain, and go about their business. I want to show them what 340,000 seals actually look like., lined up on both sides of the highway,” says Anthony Marr, founder of Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE), long time anti-hunting-activist. “Still no reaction? How about dogs? 340,000 dead and skinned dogs along the highway. Would we let it happen?”

This will be the very first of such events on Anthony Marr’s 35-states-and-6-provinces-in-5-months Compassion for Animals Road Expedition #4 (CARE-4 - see www.HOPE-CARE.org). The second Funeral Motorcade for the Seals on this tour will be between Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, on July 16, Sunday, organized by Sea Shepherd Calgary Chapter.

Victoria anti-sealing activist and event organizer Bruce Foerster says, “The Canadian commercial seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on earth and continues unabated despite there not being any economic justification for the slaughter. This is a horrendous crime against nature which is putting into serious question Canada’s claim of being a civilized, compassionate and progressive society. This ‘hunt’ must be exposed for the fraud which it is and stopped immediately if we are ever going to take our place along other civilized nations who would never tolerate such a barbaric and sadistic act being committed on their soil.”

Details will be forthcoming in due course.

Contact:

Vancouver:

Anthony Marr
Anthony-Marr@HOPE-CARE.org

Victoria
Bruce Foerster
BruceFoerster@shaw.ca

Principal Buyer of Canadian Seal Skins Subsidized by Government to Burn Pelts

June 7, 2006

WASHINGTON – The Humane Society of the United States today reacted to news that a Norwegian company has destroyed 10,000 harp seal skins, commenting that the revelation contradicts claims of strong markets for seal products.

Norwegian media outlets reported last week that the top buyer of Canadian seal pelts, Norwegian based GC Rieber, was paid by the Norwegian government to destroy 10,000 harp seal skins. GC Rieber is considered the economic backbone of the Canadian sealing industry, each year buying 50 to 80 percent of the skins from seals killed during the annual seal hunt in Canada. Slain Canadian seals account for more than 90 percent of Rieber's seal skin business.

"For years we've suspected some form of price rigging through hidden government subsidies – now we have proof," said Rebecca Aldworth, director of Canadian wildlife issues for The Humane Society of the United States. "These revelations demonstrate that the Canadian seal hunt, in addition to being cruel and inhumane, is also economically unjustified."

GC Rieber purchases sealskins through its Newfoundland subsidiary, Carino, and has repeatedly claimed that the demand for seal products is so strong they cannot match supply. However, a recent media report revealed that the Norwegian government has paid Rieber 2 million Norwegian kroner (about $370,000 CAD/ $330,000 USD) to burn 10,000 excess Norwegian harp seal skins.

The Norwegian harp seal skins were obtained from sealers, who had also received major government subsidies (2.5 million Norwegian kroner) to kill the seals. The Norwegian government justified the burning of the skins, indicating it was impossible to find markets for the harp seal pelts.

Animal protection groups and trade specialists have questioned the repeated claims of strong sealskin markets made by Rieber in recent years.

"In 2000, the markets were so weak that Carino stopped buying seal skins halfway through the season, and sealers returning from the hunt dumped their seal skins into the ocean because they were worthless," said Aldworth. "Just a few years later, Carino is claiming their sales are the strongest they've ever been – even as major European markets are closing."

Letter to the Green Party of Canada - re. the seal massacre

4 October 2006

To: Ms. Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada

Dear Ms. May:

It is with dismay that I read the article below regarding the federal Green Party’s plan to soften its opposition to the Canadian commercial seal massacre.

While I’m writing this, I am conducting my 4th Compassion for Animals Road Expedition (CARE-4) through 35 American states in 5 months - as a Canadian. This politically expedient but morally regressive move on the part of the Canadian Green Party has caused me to hang my head even lower in apology on your behalf, as I walk amongst and speak to American animal advocates from coast to coast. And they too, are slumping in their seats in darkened and deepened despair.

Back in 1996, I was the campaign director of Western Canada Wilderness Committee leading the Ban-Bear-Hunting-in-BC Referendum Initiative.

Resulting partly from my 50-cities-in-8-weeks road tour throughout the BC interior, we generated a province-wide volunteer force of 1,800. This may look like a huge task-force on the scale of the movement, but on the scale of the project, we needed some 4,000.

Thus, we asked the BC Green Party to endorse the campaign and to offer local help from city to city. The BC Green Party refused, citing possible damage to party support in the pro-hunting districts.

The result is a failed campaign, and still zero votes for the BC Green Party. If not for the tragic, lose-lose nature of the situation, I would have laughed out loud upon receipt of the refusal. I did my level best to refrain from using the word "cowardice". About the most diplomatic statement I could make back to the BC Greens was, "What do you have to lose?"

To me, and to millions of others, the Green Party is not as much a political party than an icon of compassion, courage, conscience, ethics, enlightenment and progressive thinking in the political arena. Your political move will not benefit you politically, but it will tarnish you if not destroy you morally and ethically.

What is the Green Party’s highest political aspiration in this regard? That it will gain a seat in Newfoundland? The Polar Ice Cap will stop melting first. In Canada, the Green Party will always lose politically, but it could always shine as a guiding light for the entire Canadian civilization as long as its leaders do not dim their own brilliance.

The forces of compassion around the world have rallied to stop this most barbaric and largest marine mammal slaughter in world history, thus cleaning the name of Canada for us ashamed Canadians. Your self-defeating move will set back the movement by years, and alienate international support for your party for decades.

I hope that you will reconsider this matter with your utmost seriousness and wisdom, bearing the big picture very much in mind. There may be "other issues" within Canada, but in the international arena, there is none more prominent than the hugely despised Candian commercial seal massacre.

Sincerely,

Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)

Ignore Loyola Hearn. Go for Europe and Asia.

Fellow activists:

Now that the seal massacre season is again upon us, and many people will be writing letters, I venture to make an observation, to which I myself abide.

After over a decade of involvement in the anti-sealing movement, especially after receiving a form letter back from the DFO which matched word for word the form letter received by Steve Thompson three years before, I have come to the conclusion that writing letters to Loyola Hearn et al is a total and complete waste of time.

If a person is to write only one letter, which I believe is fairly close to the average (considering the number of people who don't write any letter at all), then write it to the government of a chosen country in Europe or Asia (incl. esp. China and Russia) to urge that country to ban Canadian seal products. Simplest would be to just send the letter to the embassy of that country.

Oh, and by the way, please do by all means coolly CC a copy to Mr. Hearn without stooping to address him directly. Even if insult is the impulse, it is a greater insult to ignore someone where it matters than to scream in his face. But the more important point is that you are writing a letter to people who will listen, than to those who won't. Your letter may make it all the way up to the EU Parliament, instead of the waste paper basket of Mr. Hearn.

Below is a sample letter to the German embassador in Ottawa, to serve as an example. It was indeed CCed to Hearn. Now that he sees Germany moving to ban Canadian seal products (whether or not it has anything to do with the letter), every letter to a foreign government CCed to him will cause a frown, instead of the sneer that the usual "Dear. Hon. Hearn, you axxhole..." type of letter would bring.

Even without considering Loyola Hearn, these letters to Europe and Asia need be written anyway, so why not take this annual flash in the pan as an opportunity to do it, and do it on a massive scale?

I believe that the first letter is always the most impactful. Subsequent letters would be considered PSs. Especially those who have already written to Hearn, writing him five more times will make no difference, but writing five letters to five foreign givernments could make all the difference in the world.

Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org

September 4, 2006

To: The Federal Republic of Germany

Dear Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany:

As a Canadian citizen and a wildlife preservationist, I am writing to ask your government to please ban the importation of all Canadian seal products, as several countries are already doing, and some other countries, including Belgium, are giving it their serious consideration.

The Canadian commercial seal hunt is by far the largest, most cruel, most brutal and least justifiable slaughter of marine mammals in history. At one metre per seal, the 325,000 baby seals killed in Canada every year would form a single file 325 km in length along a highway. When presented with reports about 10% to 40% of the seals being killed inhumanely, the Canadian government answered by saying that "only" 2% were killed inhumanely. Even 2% of 325,000 is 6,500. In many cases, being killed "inhumanely" means being skinned alive. And all for what? Fur coats for Russia and China, and Germany?

Please find below a letter I sent to the Embassy of Belgium in Ottawa, Canada, which you will find self-explanatory. I hope that Germany will join the increasing number of civilized nations in the world in opposing this barbaric industry which has no place in the 21st Century.

As a Canadian, and a wildlife preservationist, I am deeply grateful to your country for seriously considering the importation ban of Canadian seal products.

In fact, as a Canadian, I am writing to ask your country to further consider banning all products from my country until the heinous commercial seal massacre has been terminated.

Some may consider this an act of treason on the part of a Canadian citizen to make such a request upon a foreign government, but many who have heard my speeches at home and abroad understand that this is a plea from a concerned and informed Canadian for Belgium to help save the reputation of my country worldwide, since our own politicians would not take such a necessary step.

Please pay no attention to the shameful and shameless manipulations of fisheries minister Loyola Hearn, who is broadly reviled by most Canadians outside of his home province of Newfoundland, which I will dissect by the following three points:

1. Mr. Hearn is blaming the seals for the incompetence of his own ministry in the decimation of the Atlantic cod fishery. The seals, in fact are the benefactors of cod, serving as a population control of the twenty or so other species of cod-predators. Were the seals destroyed, these predatory fish would destroy what remains of the cod almost overnight.

2. Mr. Hearn's assertion that killing baby seals is the sealers' livelihood is blatantly false. The sealing season lasts for only two weeks per year. Killing seals is nothing more than a part-time job. Many sealers do it because they love to kill, not because they need to. A U.S. citizen, Ms. Cathy Kangas of Connecticut, has offered the sealers U.S. $16 million to stop the hunt, and they have flatly declined, proving that it is not an economic issue.

3. Mr. Hearn's worst manipulation of all is to try to "guilt trip" Belgium into submission. Historical and universal wisdom has it that when one does another a favor, it is a gift, not a bargain, not a trade. When a gift is given, one should NEVER expect, nor even hope for, a return. Hearn's mouthing of his very despicable words has dishonored all Canadians, and cheapened the sacrifices of those Canadians who have given their lives to a noble cause.

In closing, I would like to say one thing in which I do agree with Mr. Hearn, and that is to invite EU members to observe the seal massacre, which will prove even more convincing than our video, which, by the way, is less than one year old, not 20 years old as in Mr. Hearn's deceitful claim, but in such a manner so that Mr. Hearn could not employ his deviousness to stage a picture-book presentation.

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Canada's fisheries minister has chosen a novel way to persuade politicians in Belgium to reconsider a plan to ban imports of Newfoundland seal products.

Loyola Hearn, in Brussels this week to meet with the European Union's fisheries commissioner to discuss foreign overfishing, said he reminded the Belgians of the many Canadian soldiers who lost their lives in Belgium during the First World War.

The Newfoundland MP said an import ban would amount to "taking the livelihood away from a number of Canadians whose family members left their blood on the fields here in Belgium, Flanders fields and other places.

"That got their attention,'' he told St. John's radio station VOCM. "But the thing is they are looking much more seriously at what we're saying and have agreed to look for the facts.''

Hearn said he extended an invitation to members of the European Parliament to visit Canada and learn more about the seal hunt.

"I've sort of challenged them to look for the truth, for the facts, and to visit Canada to make up their own minds. Don't base their decisions on ... what they heard and seen from lobby groups who are using 20-year-old videos.''

Hearn said he raised the issue of the seal hunt after he learned that members of the Belgian Parliament were in the process of introducing legislation to ban the importation of seal products.

Commentary on "Woman from the Netherlands Promotes Seal-Based Tourism"

Fellow activists:

The following cartoon is a few years old, I think, but every bit as relevant today as the day it was drawn. Worse now than before in fact, because today, baby seals are drowning due to global warming - "global" "warming", that is, except for the hearts of the sealers, politicians and fisheries ministers in Canada.

"I am Canadian. Boycott my country!" - Anthony Marr

Following is a new development in the anti-sealing movement - seal-oriented tourism, as proposed and being researched by Lenie Hart, founder of the Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre in the Netherlands. I applaud her initiative and effort.

Australian activist Menkit Prince cautions: "The problem is that sealers could well profit from tourism AND sealing together - I think they already are doing this. Take tourists out to have their picture taken with cute little white seals then a few weeks later bludgeon the poor things." Good point.

The solution dovetails with what I have been calling for all along: Expand the ongoing Canadian seafood boycott to a broader boycott of Canadian goods and services, including tourism. In this case, boycotting Atlantic Canada tourism should be greatly emphasized, even seal-oriented eco-tourism, to be lifted only when seal-killing has been terminated. The sealers will get the point that they cannot have the cake and eat it too.

Below the article is a series of comments by readers, both pro and con. One of the pro-sealers wrote "Do people forget that we, as human, are at the top of the food chain and that all the animals underneath us are expendable. Back 50 years ago there was never an argument about hunting anything. Either people needed to hunt to survive or they needed to hunt to protect their lively-hood. I think it is a shame that these seals come ahead of people who are trying to make a living.....if they continue to over populate, there will be no fisheries left. Give your heads a shake people....are we going to let seals jump ahead of us on the food chain?? They need to be hunted....PERIOD."

The undisguised arrogance notwithstanding, the assertion that seals decimate the fisheries needs to be addressed again and again, because the false accusation arises again and again. The fact of the matter is that only 3% of the Harp seal's diet comprises cod, and the other 97% comprises about 20 species of predatory fish and squid that prey upon cod. The seals keep these other species in check, and all fish species, including cod, in balance. Our children's future risks being irreparably damaged by the medieval doctrine of these club-swinging living-anachronisms.

In support of this, there was a seal hunt from 1939 to 1969 on the West Coast, where the cod-equivalent are the salmon, and where there are also some 20 species of salmon predators. Contrary to popular prediction, the salmon crashed in the 1960s, when the seals had been decimated, and rebounded in the 1980s and 1990s, after the seal population had itself rebounded. Science does not work by different rules just because the sealers say so.

Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org

PS - Note on Cartoon posted above...
Still, as a Canadian, I have to say this in my own defence, "Except for the commercial seal massacre, and the continued cultural killing of the critically endangered Eastern Arctic Bowhead whale by the Canadian Inuits (who openly support the commercial seal massacre), and selling out its endangered, threatened and vulnerable wildlife including the grizzly bear, polar bear, elk, big-horn sheep, moose, deer... to foreign trophy hunters, and being the Premarin Capital of the World, and the clearcutting of old growth forests, and being the biggest per-capita energy consumers in the world, and the leadership following the 'lead' of George W. Bush in not honoring our Kyoto commitment..., Canada is a pretty civilized country."

I also heard back from a pro-sealer, saying, "You live on the West Coast, so mind your own fxxking business." Sure, buddy, as soon as I don't have to bear your shame when I go traveling outside of Canada.

Woman from The Netherlands promotes seal-based tourism
BY NANCY WILLIS
The Guardian

Photo (Right): Lenie Hart, founder of the Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre in the Netherlands, is on Prince Edward Island this week to lay the groundwork for creating a seal-based tourism industry. Guardian photo

The founder of the Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre in the Netherlands is on Prince Edward Island this week to lay the groundwork for the creation of a seal-based tourism industry and a type of buyout program that would encourage Island sealers to give up the hunt.

Lenie Hart, who began her world-renowned centre 35 years ago, said she is not here to tell the Canadian people what to do, she simply wants them to see what peoples interest in seals has done for her small village, and how the same thing could be happening here.

She said Prince Edward Island is the prime location in relation to the sealing birthing grounds, and its small number of sealers (22) makes it a perfect place to start this tourism concept in earnest.

Seal tourism now brings $1 million Euro to our small village, she said.

Hart said it is important to remember that whether Islanders are for or against a seal hunt is immaterial. It has absolutely no bearing on how successful a seal-oriented tourism program can be.

People from all over the world are hugely interested in seals and it is that interest that can be capitalized on by Prince Edward Island.

Hart met with some of the 22 Island fishermen who are licensed sealers before doing anything else.

She wanted to get their feelings about the possibility of making money from tourism rather than the hunt.

I am here for business, not anti-sealing campaigning. I have talked to the fishermen here and they are clear that they join the hunt because of the money, not because they have a passion for the hunt.

In Hart's opinion there are two victims in this issue: the seals and the fishermen.

She said celebrities fly in and take helicopters to the ice and take pictures that are spread around the world, yet people have no idea what fishermen are going through.

Hart and her organization are willing to back up their proposal by securing the money to get it off the ground, if the fishermen are interested, and if there is interest in creating a good seal information centre for tourism in general.

When we can make a deal we will find the funds to pay the fishermen to stay home for the season, she said.

At the same time we will offer information and financial aid for the tourism industry information component.

At home, in Pieterburen, The Netherlands, Hart's Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre works with mammals affected by oil spills, being caught in nets, stranding, or any other catastrophes.

The centre responds to problems and disasters all over the world.

More than 200 affected animals wash up on the Atlantic shores of The Netherlands and adjoining coast lines every year.

Sport fishermen are calling for a renewed cull of harbour seals near Courtenay on Vancouver Island just as research shows the species has increased 10-fold as a result of protection in local
waters.

Legislation in Canada and the U.S. in the early 1970s made it illegal to kill marine mammals without a permit, ending an era of culls and bounties and giving rise to today's thriving harbour seal population.

The population is now relatively stable at 52,000 harbour seals using 650 haul-out sites (beach locations where seals rest) in the Strait of Georgia and Washington state's Puget Sound, according to Peter Olesiuk, a research biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Nanaimo.

Harbour seals' population has stabilized over the years.
Chuck Russell, Vancouver Sun Files

Olesiuk will deliver a presentation to a Vancouver marine conference this week showing the harbour seal population in local waters has increased about 10-fold between the early-1970s and mid-1990s.

Gerry Scott, with the Comox local of the Sport Fish Advisory Board, said in an interview that
fishermen are not calling for a widespread cull of harbour seals throughout the Strait of Georgia, but feel it is necessary on the Puntledge River to protect a summer run of spawning chinook that is down to a few thousand fish.

He said the seals show up at night under the bridge and use the city lights to gobble up young fish as they come downstream in spring.

"It's amazing, they literally turn upside down and start eating. We have to ensure the survival of those fish," he said.

Andrew Trites, director of marine mammal research at the Fisheries Centre at the University of B.C., said salmon runs decline for a variety of reasons, often directly the result of human actions.

He's seen no hard research to show the Puntledge River cull of a decade ago achieved anything.

Seals are easy scapegoats because they can be seen following salmon during spawning migrations in the fall, he said. People fail to realize seals may be of "net benefit" to salmon because they eat a greater number of hake throughout the year. "Hake are one of the largest predators of salmon," he said.

Harbour seals aren't the only ones that benefited from the marine mammal protection legislation.

Steller sea lions have increased steadily in local waters, and are estimated at 500 to 1,500,
Olesiuk reports. It is a species of special concern in B.C., officially threatened in Alaska.

California sea lions have extended their non-breeding range northward, with counts fluctuating at 1,000 to 2,500 since the 1980s. Both species of sea lion were rare in local waters prior to the early 1970s.

Northern elephant seals that breed off California and generally forage offshore are also being observed in small numbers at Race Rocks near Victoria. The species had almost been hunted to extinction.

The Fisheries Department culled a total of 52 harbour seals in 1997 and 1998 to benefit chinook salmon on the Puntledge River, and is now in discussion with local stakeholders, including sport fishermen and first nations, who are pushing for the controversial management tactic to be repeated.

Bruce Adkins, the department's area chief of oceans habitat enhancement for the south coast, said harbour seals position themselves beneath the bridge over the Courtenay River downstream of the Puntledge and eat juvenile salmon going downriver and adults returning to spawn.

He said returns were improved after the cull a decade ago, but noted the situation is clouded by the fact other rivers in the area that had no seal cull also had good production. He said more research is needed to better assess the potential benefits of another cull.

Trites noted that a seal cull designed to save salmon in Alaska backfired on the Copper River in the 1960s when the population of starry flounders (a species of flatfish) on which the seals fed exploded. That in turn led to a collapse of the razor clam fishery, a favourite prey of the flounders.

The federation remains committed to a scientific-based management approach to all species, he said, urging both senior governments to devote more money to wildlife research.

He said he would consider support for control methods if evidence shows that an increase in numbers of one species such as the harbour seal had a detrimental impact on others.

Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said in a telephone interview that churning fish into feed for livestock, commercial cat food, and fish farms is a vastly bigger threat to fish stocks than seals.

Olesiuk will present his findings at the 2007 Georgia Basin Puget Sound Research Conference today through Thursday in Vancouver.

The sport fishermen pushing for this cull should do some homework in the recent history of British Columbia's fisheries before repeating another disastrous page of it. I refer to the 1939-1969 Harbour-seal cull on the BC coast, which was supposed to protect salmon stock. By the late 1960s, the seals had indeed been decimated, but, not as predicted, so had the salmon runs in most BC rivers. The seal hunt was finally banned in 1970. By the 1990s, the seals had rebounded, and, yes, so had most of the salmon runs. Those few that did not rebound were mostly overfished.

Here are a few examples, out of dozens, extracted from the BC government's own database:

The reason for this is that only 3% of the seal's diet comprises salmonids. The other 97% comprises about 20 other species of fish and cephalopods that prey on salmon, including rock fish, sand lance, herring, sculpin, smelt, tomcod, lamprey, flounder, shad, hake, perch, gunnel, prickle-back, anchovy, chub, mackerel, and squid. When the seals are decimated, these species proliferate, massively consuming the salmonids.

The fisherman should familiarize themselves with some rudiments of marine ecology, particularly to realize that in the water is more than just salmon, seal and line-hook-sinker. The equation is not the simplistic "fewer-seals / more-salmon", but the realistic "fewer-seals / more-salmon-predators / fewer salmon".

Finally, realize that the seals eat fish to live, and sport fishermen kill fish for entertainment. Please show a little generosity and compassion, to both fish and seal.

Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org

Announcing: the Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition

The Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition (WCASC)

Founded March 31, 2007

Purpose:

Where the Canadian commercial seal hunt is concerned, Canada can be divided into three main zones: (from east to west) Eastern Canada (Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and the Inuits), Central Canada (Ontario and Quebec) and Western Canada (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia). It would not be far wrong to say that 80% of Newfoundland voters are pro-sealing, 60% of Ontario voters are anti-sealing, and 80% of British Columbians are anti-sealing.

However, while there is a well established power block in Eastern Canada (centred upon the sealers themselves), and a well established power block in Central Canada (in the form of the national AR/AW groups, which nonetheless seldom speak for the West), but no established integrated power block in Western Canada. Anti-sealing Western Canada needs such a power block to counter-balance the Eastern Canada power block in political influence. Thus, the Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition.

First Campaign

Imagine all the MPs from BC, AB, SK and MB, regardless of party, speaking out against the seal hunt in parliament. Wouldn't that be a coup and a half!?

It can happen, and the Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition, with all its member groups working in unison, can make it happen. Of course "all" is a tall order, but even just 30% would be momentous and monumental, perhaps even unprecedented and historical - the last referring to the hastening of the seal-hunt ban.

If truly three quarters of the voters in the West are against the Eastern seal hunt, it should not be too difficult to demonstrate to the Western MPs that at least the majority of his/her constituents are against the hunt, and that it is their express wish that their elected MPs vigorously represent their view in Parliament. The MPs would pretty well have to speak out against the hunt, regardless of their own personal leanings.

One of the ways to accomplish this is by petitioning, both in paper form (constituency-specific) and electronic form (Western-Canada-wide - to be sorted by city). I would say that the signatures of 10% of the voters in a constituency would be sufficient initially. Whether or not, give it more work and time.

A simultaneous phone/letter campaign to the MPs' offices will prove immensely powerful.

It will probably take the better of a year to reach this goal for most constituencies, but there is no better time to launch this petition drive than now, when the hunt is about to start..

First Actions:

1. Launch the Western Canada petition/phone/letter drive at once. Petition forms will be created in short order and distributed to the AR and AW groups throughout the four western provinces.

2. Build and launch a website for the Coalition and its campaigns.

3. Build the Coalition.

4. Start thinking about new campaigns.

Structure:

By design, the Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition will not involve any government in any way. It will not be registered with any governmental agency. And it will not be subject to any governmental control and restrictions (except the law). In this way, it will be like Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE - www.HOPE-CARE.org), which is just a name, a website, and a whole lot of action at minimal cost. Like HOPE, the Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition will have no paid personnel (in the foreseeable future), and it will have no static financial base. It does have an informal Board of Directors.

Membership-wise, the Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition will be an umbrella organization whose members will be some of the extant anti-sealing AR and AW grassroots groups in BC, AB, SK and MB. There is no membership fee at this point; participation will do. When the Coalition launches a campaign, the funds needed for the campaign will then be sought outside of the Coalition on a case by case basis. Individual memberships will also be accepted.

Any group or individual interested in being part of the Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition please contact:

Having demonstrated at Red Lobster enough times, I have come to the conclusion that it is little more than a red herring, doing little but to divert attention from the real thing, which is Canada, and soaking up our energy in a side alley if not a dead-end..

Very few driversby and passersby make the connection. Most just think that it is another KFC- or McDonalds-type demo that might have something to do with how Red Lobster treats their lobsters!

Another reason is that it only concerns Canadian seafood. I have written for more than a year that boycotting Canadian seafood alone is not enough, too self-restrictive, confusing to consumers, and dispowering to vegetarians and vegans.

I would urge those living outside of Canada to demo in front of Canadian consulates and embassies towards directly banning the hunt, and/or at the embassies of E.U. countries towards banning Canadian seal products - instead of Red Lobster.

The slogan on my "Seal Mobile" when I tour the U.S. is "I AM CANADIAN, BOYCOTT MY COUNTRY!", not "Boycott the seafood of my country". BOYCOTT CANADA - the simpler, the better. Just my 2-cent, but I live by it.

Media Release - the first seal died; the Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition is born

Fellow activists:

Below is a media release which I ask you to kindly distribute far and wide, within the movement as well as to media. Anti-sealing Western Canada needs global support to counter-balance pro-sealing Eastern Canada which has unfair geographical and political advantages. I ask everyone reading this, who has a heart for the seals, to join the Western Canada Anti-sealing Coalition. No fee is required. participation will do.

Anthony Marr, founder of
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE, 1999 - www.HOPE-CARE.org)
Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition (WCASC, 2007 - website under construction).
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Apr. 2, 2007
Today, in Eastern Canada,
the first of 270,000+ seals was clubbed to death
or skinned alive, and the
Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition
is born, with a vengeance

A tragedy of biblical proportions has been unfolding in the Gulf of St. Lawrence over the last several weeks. Untold thousands of baby seals have drowned as a result of global warming. The polar ice cap is shrinking year by year closer to zero, and the harp seal and polar bear seem destined for extinction.

“Any compassionate, conscionable and responsible government, one with any foresight at all, would abandon the seal hunt at once, and further launch programs to protect the seals from further decimation. Instead, ours has again heartlessly, thoughtlessly and soullessly returned to what remains of the ice to savage what remain of the seals,” says Anthony Marr, founder of the newly formed Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition.

Why the Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition? “Ask 100 people in Newfoundland, and 80 will say that they are for the seal hunt. Ask 100 people in British Columbia, and 80 will say that they are against it. But the East has much more political clout because its pro-sealing public is more unified and heated than its Western anti-sealing counterpart. The Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition is to forge the anti-sealing forces of the West into a unified, passionate and dynamic power block that can outweigh the power block of the East, and tip the scale in Central Canada,” said Anthony Marr.

How will this be accomplished? “We will build the Coalition by waging its first campaign that will naturally require broad-based participation to be successful. The Coalition will more than built itself for action; it will build itself through action,” said Anthony Marr.

What kind of action? “Wage a passionate, unified and a Western-Canada-wide campaign, and we can, for example, make many Western MPs speak out against the seal hunt in Parliament, regardless of party and their own personal leanings. This is just one of the many momentous things WCASC can do,” said Anthony Marr.

How broad should the “broad-based participation” be? “Global. Canada, the U.S., Europe, Asia. The WCASC is not an exclusive club for Western Canadians, but a global organization championing and supporting the anti-sealing Western Canadian cause. Canadian, American, European and Asian members all welcome,” said Anthony Marr.

My dear friend Sue Hirsch received an unsolicited email from one Charles Randolph (teeri1@aol.com), a pro-sealing Canadian. Being too upset for words, Sue asked her friends to respond to Mr. Randolph on her behalf. Here is my contribution. I'm writing to ask you all to give him a piece of your mind, since the main point he was trying to make was that regarding the Canadian seal hunt, non-Canadians should bloody well mind their own business.

I'm actually breaking my own rule of not stooping down to their level and communicating with them directly, but since he exposed himself so invitingly, I just couldn't resist.

Please CC a copy of your email to Sue (ssforever@earthlink.net). That will make her Easter.

A friend of mine forwarded an email you sent asking someone to stop buying Canadian Seafood to stop the seal hunt. I for one am all for the seal hunt. They have great skins that are very useful and beautifull.

A friend of mine forwarded your email for me to respond to. I would be happy to contribute my opinion. Nothing personal, but first of all, may I ask you whether you are bald, and if not, whether you hair is blonde, in which case may I have your scalp? I just loooove blondes.

I love nature

I love nature too, and seals are a part of nature. But I think we have different definitions of "love". When I love something, I want to protect it. Apparently, when you love something, you want to kill it.

To be generous, I'll say that you don't really want to kill it. You just want to rob it of its beauty to enhance your own image with a fur coat. And, yeah, well, if it can't live without its skin, too bad, eh?

You may as well take its penis too while you're at it, since your "wise use" would require you to use everything.

and think we should utilize and enjoy its beauty, while responsibly managing the resource.

Lots of nice words here, but from somebody like you, they mean "and think we should rape it, while leaving a few to rape next year".

From what I have learned, the Canadian seal hunters have been doing this for a long time and there are still lots of seals, so I think they are doing fine and should be allowed to continue their artesenal hunting practices without interference from outsiders.

From what I have learned, the seals have never been mass slaughtered before the seal hunters arrived from Europe and became Canadian. Up to that time, both the cod and the seals were doing just fine, thank you very much.

Also, "a long time" does not include now. Now is a new era - of global warming. Your rules no longer apply.

Speaking of global warming, it is estimated that some 250,000 baby seals have drowned in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, and Canada still uncharitably adds 270,000 to the tally, adding up to 520,000 in total seal fatality, and this is assuming that there is no overkill as oft-repeated in pervious years. Some "responsible management", if you ask me.

By the way, I am not an "outsider". I am as Canadian as you.

Another thought is why penalize Canadian fishermen? What do they have to do with seal hunting?

Another thought is why penalize the seals? What do they have to do with fishermen decimating the cod stock by overfishing resulting from irresponsible management?

You want to take away their livlihood...

You want to take away their lives...

when they have no imnpact on seal hunters thousands of miles away. Wow, you are really reaching for straws and being rather irresponsible in the proocess. Why not boycott all Canadian goods if you want to pressure the gevernment?

Thank you for the great idea. Finally we agree on something. I will ask the "outsiders" everywhere to boycott all Canadian goods then. Thanks again!

Is that because you believe everything you read from sources you trust. I like to learn both sides of a story before forming my opinions, and I have in this case. I think you are irresponisble and nosing into others affairs that don't concern you.

Something so hideous and uncivilized concerns everyone on Earth and even Martians. Natural law says that the seals do not belong to Canada. If Canada wants to claim something, it should be the responsibility to safeguard them, not to skin them alive, and to profit from their penises. Shame on Canada for such obscenity and, yes, irresponsibility (since you like this word so much).

I said I like people like you, becasue as you note the price of crab is down and if you want to take credit for that, great, and thanks. Crab is delicious.

Good news that the price of crab is down. But obviously we have different reasons. I hope you will get a very delicious indigestion.

By the way, I am glad you are doing thinsgs that make you sleep better at night, but rest assured the seals and the world doesn't need you to save it.

I disagree. I will ask Sue to continue helping us patriotic Canadians to clean up our reputation, since we can't do it ourselves without their support.

Anthony Marr

Charles Randolph

Elementary students' Stop-the-Seal-Hunt animation

Hi Anthony,

I got an e-mail regarding your campaign to build political pressure to stop the seal hunt. I thought you might be interested in the following video made by elementary students in one of our claymation workshops:

www.reelyouth.ca/claymation/060301_stopthehunt.html

Feel free to distribute! : )

Mark Vonesch
Director
www.reelyouth.ca

Mark,

This is great! I will pass it on to the rest of North America and Europe.

Say hi to the fantastic kids!

Anthony

Proposal - uplist Polar Bear and Harp Seal to CITES 1

Note: The Conventional on International Trade of Endangered Species - CITES ("SIE-tees") - is the world authority on species conservation designation in terms of being Endangered (CITES 1), Threatened (CITES 2), Vulnerable (CITES 3), etc.. Once a species becomes classified as "Endangered", it automatically becomes internationally protected against hunting and trading.

If the Harp seal becomes uplisted to CITES 1, it would become automatically illegal to hunt them or to trade their body parts. If Canada persists in hunting them, it would be violating international law in a big way (versus in a small way in allowing the Inuits to kill one or two highly endangered Eastern Arctic Bowhead whale).

A Bengal tiger preservationist would say that given the enormous pressure to which its natural habitat is subjected, for one reason, the Bengal tiger's current conservation status of "Endangered" is accurate and well deserved. We need no more reason to justify this, although, of course, there is also rampant poaching and multi-billion-dollar illegal international trade.

In comparison, a Harp seal preservationist would consider the natural habitat of the Harp seal - the polar ice cap - as being more critically threatened than even the Bengal tiger's forests. As a direct result of global warming, the polar ice caps will melt to nothing or next to nothing within mere decades. This seems inevitable and unstoppable. Since the Harp seals need ice as a species to survive, they could die out within one generation of the total disappearance of the polar ice cap. This year, for the first time in observed natural history, the Gulf of St. Lawrence is nearly ice-free, resulting in the drowning of days-old pups by the thousands.

For the same reason, Polar bear has been suffering a shortening and shortened winter, resulting in poorer condition, and drowning when forces to swim long distances. Further, the Polar bear is closely connected to the Harp seal in the Arctic food web. If the Harp seal falls extinct, so would the Polar bear.

I don't think I need another reason, such as the massive and notorious Canadian commercial seal hunt, to propose the uplisting of both the Harp seal and the Polar bear to CITES I - "Endangered".

Indeed, if we consider the period of merely 50 years, I do not see any two large mammalian species as being more doomed than the Polar bear and the Harp seal. To save them, to uplist them is the first logical step.

In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel said on National Public Radio that he once asked a congressman why, when 85% of his constituents were FOR gun control, he voted AGAINST it. The congressman said, "Because the 15% are organized."

This applies to the Canadian seal massacre perfectly. The vast majority of the 30 million Canadians, especially the Western Canadians, are opposed to the seal massacre, yet the few thousand hard core sealers are killing 270,000 baby seals with impunity and government support as we speak, continuing to hold all Canadians hostage.

Why? “Because the 15% are organized.”

The “85%” does not apply to Canada as a whole, because the majority of Eastern Canadians (particularly Newfoundlanders) support the hunt, which drags down the national average, but it does apply to British Columbians. All in all, it is safe to say that 75% of Western Canadians oppose the hunt, and their wish has been incessantly denied.

Why? Because the 85% are disorganized. So, it is time for the 85% to get organized.

Thus, the Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition.

Membership:

WCASC does not recruit members through any sign-up process, nor does it charge a membership fee. It is membership by participation. Any group or individual participating in a WCASC campaign automatically becomes a member.

First WCASC Campaign:

Objective:

To have as many Western Members of Parliament speak out against the Eastern Canada seal massacre, in parliament, as possible.

Obviously, one MP speaking out against it won’t make a difference. Two is better, but far from enough, not even ten, or twenty. In other words, it has to be a Western-Canada-wide concerted action.

This is a long standing resource that we have so far left undeveloped. It is a potential solution that must be tried, in case it can work, and we believe that it can.

Action items:

1. Petition

A petition signature is worth many votes to a politician.

A formal petition form will be broadly distributed and circulated throughout Western Canada, including British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. This petition will be directed to the House of Commons, but will be sorted by electoral districts. Specific targets for each electoral district will be about 10% of the voters within 6 months.

A centralized tally will be kept by WCASC and periodically updated in the WCASC website (currently under construction) and by email.

2. Letter writing - to Western MPs

Participating AR/AW groups in BC, AB, SK and MB will ask their own members to not only sign and circulate the petition, but to write letters to their local MPs. To a politician, an individually written letter is worth many petition signatures, each in turn being worth many votes.

3. Letter writing - to European countries

3a. To European governments - Participating AR/AW groups in BC, AB, SK and MB will ask their own members to ask those European countries not already banning Canadian seal products to please do so, and to thank those European countries that have already done so. An email-list database will be provided.

3b. To European AR-AW groups - The E.U. countries are by and large democracies, meaning that their governments answer to the will of their own citizens (at least in theory); participating AR/AW groups in BC, AB, SK and MB will ask the activists of each European country to write their own governments toward banning Canadian seal products, and to support a E.U.-wide ban. An email-list database will be provided.

And that’s it.

A note to Non-Western-Canadians, including Americans and Europeans: Please help and support!

Thank you all for your attention. The petition form and the email databases will be forthcoming within days.

We have never done this before, but together, we can do it. So let's do it.

ps: Steve Thompson is an anti-sealing activist living in Richmond, BC.

From Stephen Thompson (Save our seals):

To all my Compadres,

Hope you find the following as interesting as I did.

Excerpt sourced from the following link:
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/391/fopo/
evidence/ev2505286/fopoev20-e.htm#T0935

(Also attached is the recent Report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries
and Oceans / Seal "Harvest".)

39th Parliament, 1St Session - Evidence given:

Mr. John Kearley:

"Down through the years, too many times we've gone with facts and
numbers, and as I said, these people are not interested in facts; it's an
emotional issue. It's the biggest fundraising for these protest groups. They
have used and still are using the pictures of the whitecoats being killed,
with the tears running out of their eyes. Of course, we haven't hunted
whitecoat since 1982. That was stopped because of the protest groups. It had
nothing to do with the market for whitecoats, or anything else; it was a
perception thing.

I think we should be more aggressive. People are being lied to; the
facts distributed by the protest groups are not the actual facts. I think
the Canadian government should be more in the forefront in dealing with
these protest groups.

For instance, in the United States we've had the Marine Mammal
Protection Act now for a number of years, which put a ban on the importation
of seal products into the United States; yet the Canadian government has
done little if anything over the years to work on this issue. There's a huge
market of 300 million people on our doorstep, and we are unable to access
that market.

Also, there are the problems of logistics that it creates. As a company,
we have lost product that was accidentally trans-shipped through the United
States and seized by U.S. Customs. We have to be very careful when we're
shipping product now, so that the shipping line or whatever does not
transship to the United States.

For instance, the main hub of all courier companies in North America is
most likely in the United States. When we ship samples of our product to our
parent, we have to disguise the description of what it is, because it may be
seized by U.S. Customs. We have to disguise what we are shipping. Just
recently I shipped samples of our seal oil for analysis and I termed it
marine oil so that people looking at the document would not know whether it
was lube oil or whatever. You have to do these things. It's unfortunate that
we're selling a legal product, yet have to disguise it as something else.

We haven't presented the "good side" stories of the Canadian seal
harvest; for instance, about seal oil. We haven't put out to the public the
benefits to cardiovascular health and cholesterol levels, and things like
this. You can use facts until the cows come home, as they say, but let's
start telling the good side stories of the seal harvest, and not go just
with facts, but go with the emotion that these people work on as well.

It's a very emotional issue for me. I've been involved with the sealing
industry in Newfoundland now for almost 30 years and I'm very proud of what
I do, very proud of my company, and very proud of the sealers who
participate in this harvest. It's an emotional issue for me and emotional
for people like Rene and Wilf. Rene was personally attacked last year. It's
time that as a government we start to stand up for the citizens of Canada.

If you talk to sealers and ask them what this harvest means to them,
they go back to the days of their father, when they were children and the
seal hunt taking place in the spring of the year meant a lot to these people
in terms of a livelihood. In, as we say, the long, cold, hungry month of
March, when supplies were running low, all of a sudden there was an
opportunity to put extra dollars in their pockets and meat on their tables.
It's an emotional issue and it should be treated as such."

This time around I have found a Pit-bull within the ranks of NOAA who is
going to investigate the Carino Company.

Any doubt that the seal slaughter is subsidized by the government of Canada
can now be buried six feet under.

The Committee recommends that Canada through the Department of Fisheries and
Oceans and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade must
immediately commit itself to the goal of removing the trade barriers within
the MMPA whereby Canadian seal products are prevented from entering the
United States. - In addition, Canada must seriously consider seeking a
review under GATT of the prohibition of the importation of Canadian seal
products into the United States.

I believe the government of Canada is hedging its bet that while our anti
seal slaughter movement has its sights on Europe we will be so distracted
that we will take our eye off the U.S. We need to circulate this report far
and wide in the States and ask U.S. citizens to write to their Senators.

We have been looking for animal protection and earth friendly organizations that share a common goal with our organization; to put an end to the many forms of animal cruelty and abuse. The Scandinavian Anti-Sealing Coalition is a brand new organization dedicated to stopping the cruel hunts in Canada, Sweden and Norway that seek to destroy hundreds of thousands of baby seals; not for food or medicine, but for the sole purpose of supplying seal skin fashion wear. We at Scandinavian Anti-Sealing Coalition would like to join together with other animal rights organizations by trading links and helping to spread word of our organizations to as many people as possible!

We would also like to invite you to join our coalition by filling out our form (completely free of charge). We would then publish your organization’s name and a link to your site in our member’s page as well as our links page. Please feel free to pass the information about our site on to anybody who might be interested in fighting this hunt. The more people (both individuals and organizations) who sign up the quicker we can show the Canadian Government that people all over the world would like to see this hunt come to an end!

We hope you’ll be willing to work with us! The more organizations that can align with one another, the sooner our voices will be heard and the faster we can see an end to the many forms of animal cruelty that plague our planet.

Seek, by appropriate legal and non-violent means, to bring an end to the Norwegian Seal Hunt and the Canadian Commercial Seal Hunt, the world’s largest and cruelest slaughter of marine mammals, by raising public awareness about the cruelty and inhumanity involved in this unnecessary seal slaughter. It is a hunt for pups and it is a hunt for only one product; their fur - a luxury nobody needs anymore.

March 2008 Vancouver Anti-Seal-Hunt Demonstration

My thanks to Erika Ceballos, president of Vancouver-based CATCA, for organizing the 2008 Vancouver anti-seal-hunt demo, all the more so since she was also in Europe for 3 weeks until a week ago to exert more external pressure on Canada towards terminating the atrocity ASAP. Erika also attended the last IWC (International Whaling Commission) meeting.

Thanks are also due to Regina Flores of IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) for bringing support from Ontario to Vancouver to make this year's event as successful as possible, and to Dr. David Lavigne for his enlightening PowerPoint presentation on the issu in the evening of March 14.

Joanne Chang is always there year after year to lead and rally the troop.

Feel free to use and distribute freely. For high resolution versions, please email me.

This is the third day of the annual Canadian blood fest. Already several thousand baby seals have been brutally snuffed, but still a long way to go for the medieval killers to claim all 275,000 innocent lives, not counting those pups who will drown in the shifting ice. Now is the time to ride the tide of sorrow sweeping the compassionate people around the world, for the seals.

Over the last 13 years, I have campaigned against the barbarism both directly at the Canadian government, as well as to intensify external pressure on Canada from beyond (US and EU). Of these, I've found the latter more effective than the former by far.

Now, I ask you to join me to write an email, just one, to all the nations in Europe to ask for their help to end the atrocity. It doesn't matter if a certain country is already on board; send it your wish anyway, so it will be further consolidated. I won't tell you what to say in your message; basically, just ask the European countries to ban importation of all Canadian seal products, and any other product they wish. As diverse the expression, the better.

All the destinations are European embassies in Ottawa, Canada, but even if you are American or European or Australian or New Zealander, write them anyway. It is their job to pass your message on to their own governments.

My heart is heavy as I watch the footage from Canada's seal hunt. Already, I have seen violations of the regulations the sealers are supposed to follow. Every time I see a sealer run out to a baby seal who cannot escape, and bash in their innocent little face, my heart breaks.

If the European Union would implement a ban on seal products from Canada, this could stop. Please help us to stop this atrocity and save the lives of thousands of baby seals every year.

The United States has banned seal products since the 1970s; I implore the European Union to do the same.

Very best regards,
Melanie Baker McCain
Citizen of the United States
Omaha, Nebraska

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From: "janine bandcroft" Subject: please ban canadian seal products

I'm a canadian, ashamed that the canadian government is again allowing the slaughter of innocent seals.

One way to stop this is to cut the demand. Please refuse to import seal products from Canada. There's no need for it.

namaste,
janine bandcroft relativenewz.ca

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Michael Howard wrote:

I am writing to encourage you to implement a ban on the importation of all Canadian seal products. I, as a Canadian, am ashamed of the annual barbaric seal hunt that takes place each spring on the East Coast of Canada. It is an absolute atrocity that such a massacre as this still takes place in 2008. I respect that opponents of the hunt concentrate on the fact that it's unsustainable, but I can't wait for the day when we can make the argument that men should not be standing over baby seals and bashing their heads into a bloody mess with wooden sticks that have metal spikes attached. And for what? Nothing we can't live without. It's absolutely disgusting and it's time Canadians and the rest of the world wake up to the fact that just because we can beat up on other species, doesn't mean we should. I urge you to do your part to stop this ongoing tragedy by banning all Canadian seal products to your country.

Thank you for your consideration.
Michael Howard British Columbia, Canada

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From Carmen Gentry:

Thanks, Anthony! I just wrote to everybody! The list you provided and the whole European Union!

I CANNOT imagine what excuse the EU could possible have if they decide not to impose a ban! That will be the day I give up on people...and dedicate myself exclusively to the animals!

About Anthony Marr

Anthony Marr
* has a degree in physics
* is the author of "OMNI-SCIENCE and the Human Destiny" (2003) and "Homo Sapiens SAVE YOUR EARTH" (2008)
* 1995, he cleaned up N. American Chinatowns of endangered species medicines
* 1996, he led "the highest-profile anti-trophy-hunting campaign in Canada" (Globe and Mail).
* 1997-1999, he worked in 3 tiger reserves in India.
* 1999, he founded Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE).
* 2004/2005, he conducted operations in Japan against whaling and dolphin slaughter.
* 2003-2011, completed 7 Compassion for Animals Road Expeditions (CARE tours, each covering 30-45 states over 4-7 months), and spoke at the National AR Conference every year
* 2009, he founded the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition (GAHC)
* 2010, he won the Henry Spira Grassroots Activist Award.
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.facebook.com/AnthonyMarr001
www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com
www.AnthonyMarr13.wordpress.com
www.Dying-for Salvation.blogspot.com